Birds of a Feather
by Luxen T
Summary: The League of Shadows wants Robin dead. Their assassin wants him to live. Yet, the Shadows provides the Lazarus technology necessary to save Robin, while the assassin can't even seem to protect him from herself. What do the Shadows really want? What does Robin's so-called new ally want? Can the team figure out the Shadow's twisted end game before it's too late?
1. Chapter 1 - Sinking

_Three months ago._

 _A young girl walked alone and silent in the hallways of a Chinese style fortress. Through torn partitions and violently cleared doorways, she could see straight through the windows of the small rooms and into the mountains the base was nestled in. Most of the rooms were empty as her cold, bright blue eyes scanned each one. Occasionally, she would come upon a body, a young child or newly teenaged child lying unnaturally on the floor or hanging from a light fixture or simply cast about in pieces, but only occasionally. There were only twenty of them to start with, and she was the last standing. Nineteen dead children in a huge house, so she only found one occasionally. Each of them clad in bright red and yellow, deep black, an R standing in relief on their left breasts. Some boys, some girls, all of various sizes and skin colors and hair types, but all with their hair tamed and dyed black if necessary. Dark skin was powdered light. Alabaster skin was powdered browner. Some had their eyes closed. Most had them wide open, all of them staring with the same bright, bright blue eyes. Contacts. Nineteen dead Robins - uniforms savaged, bodies savaged - and one left standing. She herself was perfectly clean. Her bright uniform and dark cape bore not a scratch. Her boy-cut, black hair was barely mussed. She bled from no place. She walked with sure, measured steps. And sometimes when she came upon the dead, she remembered how they had come to be that way. She had taken five. Five she remembered. The rest were not hard to guess. When they had killed each other, they had not been trying to be subtle. One, she noted, had been left dead in much the same way the real Robin had been found early in his career when Two Face had done with him. Another, one of the five she remembered, lay crushed on the floor. Six stories down. Where she had dropped him over the railing of the center courtyard. Well, more than dropped him, to ensure he did not find a way to recover himself during the drop, but he had still been alive if incapacitated when he fell. The point was he had fallen. "_ Don't fall." _She blinked, feeling a dull surge of anger and urgency. But turning about she saw nothing. She had heard those words in her own mind. A grim reminder. A bloody command. Don't fall. She kept looking. She kept walking the halls, checking the rooms, until she came to the bottom level. Walking quietly past the fallen Robin she made her slow way to the front entryway where she finally found a soul alive. A beautiful young woman clad all in black leather, brown hair brushing past her shoulders, stood waiting for her. And she knew it was done. She truly was the last one standing. Her master had come to meet her._

" _Well done," Talia al Ghul greeted her. "Now go clean up."_

 _The girl was clean. She nodded and left anyway. She chose to take a route that wouldn't take her past the fallen Robin again. A short, grim-faced man standing next to Talia al Ghul stared at the fallen Robin. He had been that Robin's master._

" _Two were meant to be left alive. One, and a second to replace that one if necessary," he said, eyes still trained on his student, already in quiet acceptance. He had watched the carnage from afar as all the masters had. He knew what Talia would say._

" _She did well. She killed too quickly for us to spare a second best." Talia turned, walking away in the opposite direction of her student. "So it seems a second best won't be needed."_

 **Sinking**

On the bio-ship, the full team waited in the dark of night for Aqualad's order to move.

"Miss Martian, please establish the mind link," Aqualad said. After a moment, he asked, _"Is everyone linked?"_

The team simply nodded, Robin doing so while staring intently at his wrist-computer.

" _And you all have your instructions. Then let's move_ ," Aqualad said, standing aside as M'gann opened an exit. One by one each member jumped through the hole she had made in the bottom of the hull, some pausing just briefly to switch their uniforms into stealth. Aqualad waited until everyone but M'gann had jumped before he jumped. M'gann went last, closing the exit behind her.

Their landing was a wet one. They were currently landing in the massive home of a very wealthy businessman settled in the French Alps, and they had chosen their point of entry above the man's proportionately massive swimming pool. Kaldur made the water receive them silently, enveloping them in the water as they entered instead of letting them create a splash. This was why he had gone second to last. M'gann would not need his help slipping silently into the blue, but he hadn't trusted any of the others to drop in as silently as he could. They wouldn't have chosen the pool at all, except it was the only part of the house open to sky and with the kind of technology operating in this home's security system they couldn't risk landing the bio-ship or themselves anywhere outside to try to work their way in on foot. Kaldur didn't mind. This kind of entry and this much accessible water made him feel quite good about this mission, but he quickly put that comfort out of his mind as he and his teammates moved to their positions. He couldn't afford to start feeling comfortable, even if this did seem like an easy mission gathering intel from a civilian home. His team was depending on him to stay…what was it Robin called it? Well, to stay alert anyway. He watched as Robin snuck into a ventilation shaft and the rest of the team ran across the shining white marble tiles to their positions at the various archways leading away from the courtyard and pool and into the home. The only wrinkle in this mission was that they didn't know where to find their intel or even what it was. This was essentially a search and discovery mission, and although they had several possible locations to check for any useful information, the simple truth was this guy, Pierre DuLacque, was either good at covering his bases or too civilian for anyone to care about him. Judging by the security they'd met so far – none that was human – he guessed the latter. Even so, the full team had been launched at Batman's command. After the complete hostile take-over of the League had gone down just a few months ago, no one was willing to take risky chances, and there was so little to be known about what could happen here or what they might find. Also because of this, the team had split up. Right now, Artemis and Superboy, Kid Flash and Zatanna, and M'gann on her own were each heading into a different entryway to hit different possible intel locations. Aqualad remained in the water to provide support from a central location if necessary; one thing they did know about this property was that it contained a lot of water, and he'd decided he'd be most useful if he stayed in it. Robin was in the vents because it was likely they'd need his hacking skills and he'd need to be able to drop in anywhere when the others found something.

Kaldur slipped down into the water and against one of the pool walls, breathing through his gills in case any security should come to check the courtyard. From there he noticed what he hadn't before. This businessman had a fascination for the ocean depths, it seemed. The walls of the pool were actually fish tanks full of brightly colored specimens. The tanks had lights in them to illuminate those colors not visible by human eyes at depth, but luckily for him they were off right now. He could see the fish clearly in any case. Curiously, at the bottom of the deep end was an underwater tunnel which would only be accessible by a diver. Peering through the transparent walls of the pool and tanks, he could just make out massive shadows swimming deep in the distance. There must be another, larger tank the tunnel led to, and whatever was in it was large. Kaldur simply watched and waited for communication. He didn't have to wait long. M'gann was the first to reach her destination.

" _Aqualad, I'm in the library_ ," she reported, " _but if there's anything here we're never going to find it. It's all books, no electronics, and all the books are on shelves. There's no evidence of anything having been pulled out and looked at recently. It's quite dusty in here, actually_."

" _Understood_ ," Aqualad replied. " _Please move on to the living area, then, and be careful. Just because we have not seen anyone yet does not mean we will not."_

" _Right_ ," she said, and all was quiet again. Kaldur was only in silence a few minutes before Robin's voice sounded in his mind.

" _Just fyi, guys_ ," he said, " _it's going to take me some time to get anywhere in these. Security was smart enough to make the shafts tight. Hey, Aqualad, you have got a surplus of water to work with here. It looks like this guy owns his own aquarium_."

Kaldur frowned. " _Robin, where are you? You are supposed to be in the vents and not moving yet, tight or not."_

" _I'm still in the vents_ ," Robin assured him. " _I just moved because I thought I'd be less likely to be discovered by anyone if I were over the pools. Did you know there are multiple pools? Because there are_."

Kaldur smiled. The pool they'd landed in was under the open sky, so if Robin had known he could position himself in the vents over a pool he must have noticed the large fish tanks in the few moments he'd had after landing. Naturally. " _I had noticed there are smaller pools for containment of sea creatures, yes. And a larger one farther away_."

" _And more pools. At least two more of them. But, yeah, about that larger tank. Are you seeing what's in it?"_ Robin asked.

" _It is too far away, my friend, but they are large_."

" _No kidding. It's a shark tank_ ," Robin said. " _The Great White variety. This guy's definitely got a screw loose_."

" _Hey, can you guys keep it down, please? Some of us are trying to focus_!" Artemis interrupted as she crept down a crimson-carpeted hallway nervously. Stealth was not exactly her current partner's forte, and it was putting her on edge.

They could practically hear Rob's smirk over the link. " _Sorry. But any info is good info. Our map of this place has more dark spots than map. Found anything?"_

" _No_ ," she replied crossly. " _We aren't to our spot yet_."

" _Well, I am_ ," M'gann offered. " _There's nothing in the living room either. I'm comi-wait! I saw someone!"_

" _Did they see you_?" Kaldur asked, immediately alert.

" _I think so somehow_ ," the Martian said apologetically. " _But they ran away. I'm following now_." She flew after the fleeing figure, not sure how he had spotted her while she was camouflaged.

" _Good, do not let them alert anyone else_ ," Kaldur said anxiously. Suddenly the lights in the fish tanks glared on, making Kaldur shield his eyes. Looking down, he saw the shadow he now cast on the pool's bottom. " _You may be too late, Miss Martian. I think they are onto us. Everyone continue as planned. I have to leave this pool, but Robin says there are others and there is a tunnel leading from this pool to somewhere_." He swam down and into the tunnel quickly, hoping the other pools would be dark. Immediately, he saw that this was not so. Everywhere he looked there were lit up pools, three of them on a lower level than the pool he'd just left. He'd have to stay in the tunnel if he wanted to stay away from lights. Halfway through the tunnel he could see what Robin had been saying – the three pools were connected by tunnels, and the tank through which the tunnels ran indeed contained two Great White sharks. " _Robin, can you see me from where you are?"_

" _Yeah, but you're just a shadow moving. I can't make you out_ ," Robin replied.

" _Good. Let us hope anyone seeing me mistakes me for a shark_." He ignored the obvious size difference and hoped anyone who spotted him would too. " _Has anyone else been discovered? Miss Martian, report._ "

" _I lost him_ ," M'gann replied. " _Completely. I'm not even sure which direction he went. I'm searching for him mentally now."_

" _We haven't been seen_ ," Artemis said.

" _Us neither_ ," said Zatanna, " _although not for lack of opportunity. The walls in this wing of the house are made of glass! I've cast a spell to make me invisible, but I can't get rid of my shadow and the lights were motion detecting when we entered. Kid Flash is trying to avoid being seen by running between blind spots_."

" _Can you get into the vents like Robin?"_ M'gann asked.

" _Sure_ ," Kid Flash chipped in, " _but we won't be able to see anything from there_."

" _Do it anyway_ ," Aqualad ordered, " _Hide in the vents and wait to see if anyone comes to look for you. In three minutes if no one has come, continue your search."_

" _You think that's smart?"_ Artemis asked. " _It'll slow us down_."

" _It is a risk I will take_ ," Kaldur replied. If they were too slow to actually get the intel, maybe they could at least leave without anyone knowing precisely who had been here, but if they got caught… " _Robin. You are being very quiet. I am guessing that you have been trying to hack the security system?"_

" _Yeah, but no luck. Security's not just tight; someone must be manually working it. It's literally trying to hack me back. Sorry, gotta concentrate_." And with that, Robin went silent. As did everyone else. Things had just gone from not good to very bad and very mind-boggling.

" _Artemis, Superboy, you are still on course?"_ Kaldur asked after a moment.

" _Yes_ ," they answered together.

" _Good. Continue until I tell you otherwise. Miss Martian, do not continue searching for the man who saw you. Head toward Kid Flash and Zatanna and check their location for them_." Connor and Artemis gave their affirmation.

" _I am not so sure it was a man_ ," M'gann said. " _The person was small and very slight_."

Kaldur reflected on that but dared not hope that the person had actually been just a child and hadn't alerted anyone. It was too odd that the child had been able to spot M'gann in the first place. Kaldur was also concerned about Robin. He knew the boy was a skilled hacker, but if anyone got anything off his wrist-computer it certainly wouldn't be anything the League or Batman wanted anyone to have. Not only that, but the success of this mission would likely be contingent on Robin's ability to hack in and download any information they found. Could he do that while fending off a hacker himself? A few minutes later, Connor reported in.

" _We're in the office, and there's nothing here_ ," Superboy said curtly.

" _Yeah, literally nothing_ ," Artemis offered. " _Like I'm-not-sure-this-has-ever-even-been-used kind of nothing. Nothing to hack, nothing to take. This is weird. The place is way too clean_."

Kaldur frowned, thinking. " _Make your way back to the rendezvous_." At this point, he was almost hoping M'gann didn't find anything either. Wally and Zatanna had been checking the security offices on the north side, the farthest location from the pools, him, and Robin. " _Miss Martian, report_."

" _Sorry, Aqualad, just got here, but I think this is our best bet_ ," she said urgently. " _There's a massive computer system in here. We've found nothing else! Whatever we're looking for is here or we're not finding it!_ "

Kaldur grimaced. " _Robin, did you hear that?"_

" _Heard it_ ," Robin replied shortly. " _But I'm still-…wait, they stopped. They stopped hacking me. Ok, I'm headed to KF and them now. It'll take me a few minutes_." He started crawling laboriously northward through the shafts.

" _Understood_ ," Kaldur said, relieved. " _Kid Flash, Zatanna, stay where you are in the vents. Miss Martian, head back and prep the bio-ship. I want us to be ready to leave as soon as we have what we came for_."

" _Which is?"_ Artemis asked crossly. She and Superboy were on their way back the way they'd come. Their point of entry was also their rendezvous to leave. Softly in their minds they could hear Wally grumbling about how they couldn't go anywhere anyway with how tight the squeeze in the vents was.

Kaldur sighed, blowing bubbles underwater and hastily stopping before someone noticed. " _Whatever we can get,"_ he said, responding to Artemis' question.

As M'gann was working her way back to the courtyard to reach the bio-ship, Robin was making slow progress through the vents to the security control rooms. Everything was eerily quiet again. Eerily, because Kaldur felt sure that they truly had been discovered. An alert had to have been sounded. Since no one had entered the pool, the lights must have been turned on for some other reason than the owner of this house wanting an evening swim, and not just any security system tried to hack back. Something was very wrong. These small setbacks didn't make sense, and things that didn't make sense made missions dangerous. Robin rounded a corner, passed over a vent, and noted that he had left the pools behind, but he was still going so slowly. Passing over another vent nearby, he looked down just as he made to veer left in the shafts. His eyes widened behind his mask. He'd found the security. Row upon row of people dressed entirely in black, swords sheathed on their backs; nothing on them was identifiable, but the amount of strange trouble they'd been facing ever since they dropped in, the oddly disappearing person M'gann saw, and now this…he knew exactly what this was. He probably could have told just by looking at them.

" _Aqualad, we need to leave now!_ " Robin yelled over the mind link, backing slowly away from the vent opening.

" _Robin, what is wrong?"_ Kaldur asked.

" _We have to leave! They know we're here, and we don't want to mess with this! We're in deep in a League of Shadows trap, and we need to leave now. We need Batman_." He managed to use a juncture of ventilation shafts to get turned around, but as he turned the corner to go back the way he'd come he stopped short, coughing and covering his face in his cape. " _Tear gas in the vents! They're flushing me out!_ " And not just that. He now realized that the hacker giving up on hacking his wrist-computer had been timed to drive him here at just the right time. Reaching for his belt, he pressed the emergency alert. Batman and the League wouldn't be here soon enough to help, but it was something.

" _Try to stay in the vents, Robin_ ," Aqualad ordered, knowing it was a useless order. " _Miss Martian, we are changing plans. Track Robin's coordinates and get the bio-ship to the point of entry nearest him, never mind the security systems. Everyone else, Robin is the new rendezvous. Get to him now!"_

Robin cut over everyone's assent. " _No! Pick everyone up where we planned!"_ Only M'gann and Connor could possibly find him; everyone else would just get lost. Even as he said that, he could hear Superboy hammering through the walls straight for him. Aqualad seemed to have reached the same conclusion.

" _Everyone follow Superboy!"_ Kaldur said. " _He'll lead us straight to Robin_."

Robin cursed to himself, tunneling recklessly forward in the vents. He'd decided on forward and through the gas. Gas was better than assassins. He couldn't see, though, his cape was no longer protecting his breathing air, and he couldn't pause long enough to wriggle around in the small shaft and pull out his gas mask. He was just holding his breath, and he was going to have to give up and drop through the next available vent at this rate. Feeling along blindly, he crawled some distance before finally finding one. Kicking it open, he dropped straight out and down an entire story into one of the basement pools. Forcing himself to open his burning eyes and not shoot straight for air, he swam straight forward under the water. His teammates' voices were echoing in his head, but he hadn't had clean air in a few minutes and had to concentrate just to keep swimming forward. He had no idea what they were saying. Suddenly, he struck a wall. Squinting at it, he realized it wasn't a wall at all. Kaldur was looking at him in horror straight through the rounded glass, and then he realized his mistake. He was looking at the outside of a tunnel. He wasn't in a pool. He was in the shark tank. He knew Aqualad was saying something through the mind-link, and out loud by the looks of it, but he still couldn't hear anything properly. His hands were up in the universal gesture for "stay calm", though, and Robin understood that. But he needed air. He swam for the surface, trying to part the water as gently as possible and not splash too much as he reached the surface and gasped desperately for air. A crash sounded somewhere behind and to the right of him. No doubt Superboy had finally broken through. He knew it for a fact when he heard the cries of his teammates yelling to each other a split second later. They'd come through the hole, and the assassins had likely engaged them. He shook his head and scanned the water quickly for surfacing sharks, but the plain truth was his eyes were burning too badly to see moving shadows underwater. He needed Kaldur.

" _Aqualad, are you there? Where are the sharks?"_ he asked, peering around and up for an escape route.

" _Robin!"_ Kaldur cried in relief, " _They are circling but far below you. I am trying to break through the tunnel. Do not move!"_

Robin had spotted a catwalk, though. Well, he thought it was a catwalk, but his pained eyes couldn't be sure. " _I think I can grapple out."_ Kaldur didn't answer. Probably still hammering away at a foot's width of glass below him. He pulled out his grappling hook, aimed where the presumed catwalk was, and shot for it. A second later, he was yanked from the water and up to what was indeed a catwalk, but he landed badly, banging his hip on the railing. He realized very quickly the landing was the least of his worries. He'd been anticipated. He had a brief, confused moment to realize that Aqualad didn't have a grappling hook and hope he could handle sharks before two assassins were on him. He flipped over the catwalk's railing and into an assassin, striking out with his left foot at what he hoped was a head. He missed. His foot connected with the railing on the opposite side of the catwalk, and he leapt again, carefully. He was flying blind, and if he overshot he knew he'd end up right back in the shark tank. Being careful was not going to win him a match against two league assassins, though. He closed his eyes, shutting himself into the kind of darkness he was well used to fighting in, and struck out hard and with as much accuracy as he could muster against skilled opponents. It was about this time that he realized that one of the voices he'd been ignoring was not actually in his head, but in his ear. Batman was trying to get him to respond. He retreated backward a ways until he found one of the thick wires holding the catwalk up. He leapt upward for it, pulling himself up on it to try and gain enough momentary space to press his earpiece and respond to Batman. He heard rather than saw a shuriken flying toward him and leapt straight out for the next closest wire. Taking a risk, he touched his earpiece to allow his response, and then he was hit. The force of a mastiff slammed into his chest at a downward angle and ripped him from the wire. He was falling, no, flying. He realized he still hadn't responded and opened his mouth to do so, but he hit the water. Then he hit something hard, slamming out his breath. He experienced all of this before he finally registered the pain he was in. He gasped, gulping down salt water. He didn't know it, but just as he blacked out Batman gave up on trying to get a response.

Superboy, Kid Flash, Artemis, and Zatanna were fighting to break through to the far side of the room where M'gann had brought the bio-ship to rest just on the other side of the outer wall. Superboy would have to break through the wall. Kaldur was climbing out of the tank. None of them saw Robin fall, but they all heard M'gann's scream as she felt his pain slam into her mind. The team faltered, then recovered. Kaldur registered that the Martian was screaming Robin's name, felt him fall off the mind link, and swung around looking for him. He saw the streak of red heading from the surface at an angle and stopping at the far wall, a blood trail. He swam for it, feeling the rest of his teammates fall off the mind link one by one as M'gann lost control of the link. Kaldur felt the disturbance in the water before he could see it, and he knew he was racing the sharks. A few moments later and he was losing the race. He could see them now, hulking masses of grey stretching out in front of him. From where he was, he could see the face of one of them. Its eyes were already closed for the final attack. Suddenly a rush of sound passed by his left ear, then another on his right. The sharks below him veered and gushed red. If he had been paying attention to them, he would have seen the harpoons embedded in their thick bodies. Instead he looked forward and saw a third harpoon, the one pinning his friend and teammate to the tank wall. He saw that it had sunk into the wall and prepared himself to do what Connor ought to be doing instead. When he was close, he tucked and rolled in the water, planted his feet on the tank wall grasping the harpoon, and pushed off with all the strength he had in his legs and his ability to propel himself in the water. The harpoon broke free, and he shot for the surface, an arm around Robin's waist. As he burst out of the water near the tank's edge, he was yanked clear by Superboy who carried both of them toward the bio-ship, charging through without pause. No one barred their way. M'gann closed the hull behind them and immediately took off. Kaldur brought the water out of Robin's lungs, but he still wasn't going to breathe and he knew it. He would die if he wasn't dead already. Grasping at any idea of what could be done, he dimly noted the strange buzzing coming from Robin's ear. His comm. Batman. He was just reaching to remove the earpiece when the bio-ship started to speed up impossibly and he and Robin were relentlessly pushed to the back of the ship by the force. Kaldur's last thought before some hard object made contact with his head and concussed him into oblivion was to curl himself around Robin – Batman would kill him if he let Robin suffer whiplash on top of everything.

The rest of the team were pressed against their seats, confused and panicked and stunned. No one noticed the small figure bracing against the force of flight in the back of the ship. No one noticed that figure reach laboriously over and snatch the comm from Robin's ear.


	2. Chapter 2 - Surfacing

_Six years ago._

 _A girl sat on a stool in a Chinese style room overlooking the steep edge of a mountain. The window was open and funneled in snow-chilled air. The girl was not enjoying the view. She was sat facing a mirror and had been instructed to look nowhere but in it. Her short, black hair did not stir with the cold breeze. It had been gelled and styled until it would not move. Behind her, her master, Talia, was wrapping a white cloth around her chest, binding her small breasts tightly. The girl reached forward carefully to open a small case. She dipped her finger in the case and brought what stuck to it up to her right eye. She blinked and looked in the mirror. Her left eye was brown. Her right was bright blue. She frowned at her reflection._

" _You don't like the color?" her master asked._

 _The girl glanced to the side with just her eyes, although she couldn't see her master, and thought before answering calmly. "It's a beautiful color. Why am I doing this, master?"_

" _You are doing this," Talia paused, finishing her wrapping before finishing her sentence with a smile, "because I tell you to. It is an honor, Raksha."_

 _Raksha smoothed her frown and reached out to the case again with slow, deliberate movements. She placed the other contact in her left eye and blinked at her reflection. "No," she said. "It is not an honor. But I will make it one."_

 _Talia's eyes flared in her reflection in the mirror, her lips pressing into a furious line. She yanked the end of the wrap she had just done free and straightened. "Your turn," she snapped. "Just as I showed you. No mistakes."_

 _The girl calmly unwrapped the white cloth all the way and began re-binding her chest. Somewhere in the base, six other girls were doing the same. Two other girls and three boys were learning to use cosmetic powders. Seventeen other girls and boys were trying on contacts. Nineteen other girls and boys were learning to style their hair. Three were learning to dye it. Somewhere in the base, nineteen other girls and boys stared into the mirror and saw another face. Somewhere in the base, nineteen other girls and boys declined to shiver as a snow-chilled wind blew._

 **Surfacing**

The Batplane cruised high above the Atlantic. Batman had dispatched the team to the French Alps, because they needed information on the man living there, any information at all. The man was filthy rich, even by Bruce Wayne's standards, but his business had been plummeting oddly of late. Wayne Enterprises had been his reason for noticing this in the first place, but as Batman had dug deeper, nothing had made sense. Things that don't make sense tend to make life dangerous, or so Batman believed. And that belief had saved his life too many times to count. The French businessman's stocks had begun to disappear. Not fall, disappear, as though he had never invested at all. His money was disappearing from his accounts, paperwork on new projects was disappearing as though the ventures had never been contemplated, and what was truly concerning was when people began to disappear. The man's higher staff began to disappear, his friends, his family, and finally his business competition. Batman was fairly certain Pierre was trying to hide something while simultaneously sweeping all business in his little corner of Europe, but what it was taking to accomplish that was very concerning. And that Pierre was able to accomplish it at all, well, Bruce Wayne new exactly how much money could buy and how much it couldn't. The money that disappeared from Pierre's accounts could have paid for all the hits and document wiping, but he would have had little left to take the business of his competitors afterward, especially since his own higher staff had disappeared leaving his business cut off at the knees. So the question was: what was it all for? Either someone powerful was using DuLacque or DuLacque was using someone powerful. For what, he didn't know.

Batman had not felt that the whole team would comprehend exactly what was so concerning about this. The team had been told people had been disappearing. They knew they were being sent into a place they knew little about to learn something about a man they knew little about. They didn't know what they were meant to learn. Frankly, neither did Batman, which was disconcerting enough for him, so he did not mention that to the team. Only Robin knew the full extent of what was known and not known, and only Robin guessed at how Batman felt about that. How he felt about that was the primary reason he was now flying aimlessly over the ocean in the dead of night waiting for the team to report in. He wanted to be close in case anything went south on this mission. There was simply too much he didn't know for him not to be as careful as possible.

He was flying just off the coast of Portugal when alarms began to go off everywhere. His console was flashing red, his belt was flashing red, his com began beeping in his ear which it was programmed to continue doing until it was answered. It only beeped three times before Batman pressed it and answered Robin's emergency alert.

"Robin, report," he said shortly. There would be no dramatics and asking what was wrong or "what's your emergency" took too long. Two words only, giving Robin the chance to respond sooner.

But there was no response.

Batman's eyes narrowed behind his cowl, but he remained calm. Any number of situations could render Robin incapable of answering or make it unwise to. He'd try a few more times, then fly in to assess the situation himself.

"Robin, report." He waited, counting to ten. "Come in, Robin." He counted to ten again. "Report." Another ten-count. He considered the possibility that the emergency alert had been hit on accident. That happened sometimes; he'd intentionally made the alert easy to activate. "Robin, your emergency alert is on. If you can hear me and this is not an emergency, state so." Only once had Robin teased him with a false alert and no response. After Batman had gotten through with him, he'd never tried it again, but…Batman huffed in frustration and shook his head. No, Robin was not pranking him. He turned the Batplane toward the team's location with another "Robin, come in." This time he didn't begin counting, keeping up a steady stream of communication. "This is Batman." Odds were good Robin knew that, but if he was hurt, confused, maybe it would keep him calm. "I am on en route to your location. I should arrive in ten minutes." It wasn't soon enough. "If you can respond, please answer. Any information you can give is vital to the success of a rescue." Again, Robin should know that. If he's not answering, it's because he can't. "I'll be coming in by air. Unless you tell me otherwise, I will land in the same location you did." Having said all that could really be useful to the boy, he stopped talking. There was always the danger that someone else was listening and that was why Robin wasn't answering. It wasn't long before he realized that was not why Robin wasn't answering. His console started flashing. It had stopped when he'd answered the alert, but it was flashing again, this time blaring an alarm and bringing up a chart on his screen. This alarm was programmed to feed him information from Robin's utility belt and wrist computer if his body was suffering trauma for any length of time. He glanced at the readings just long enough to see his partner's vitals begin to fall sharply. He pressed a button on his console.

"Superman, this is Batman. Come in, over."

"Batman, this is Superman, over," the man answered almost immediately.

"We have an emergency with the team. I'm getting no response, but Robin is suffering deadly trauma. How fast can you get to France? Over."

"I'm in New York. Give me five minutes, over," he said.

Batman gritted his teeth. Superman would arrive before he did. Hopefully it would be soon enough. While he waited to arrive, he tried contacting Robin's team. He got no response from them either, so he began talking to Robin again. "Robin, I'm getting the readings of your situation. I've called in help and I'm still on my way. I hope you're remembering your training. Remain calm. If you're bleeding, remember to apply pressure. Breathe as deeply as possible to avoid hyperventilation and keep your heart rate low. Orient yourself advantageously. If you're poisoned, your belt has-" a voice interrupted him.

"Batman, I've intercepted the bio-ship, and I am assisting it in reaching the Watchtower. The full team is on the ship; I can hear their heartbeats, over" Superman said. Batman was close enough to see the ship taking off like a rocket toward the space station.

"Superman, be careful. Robin's heart is not beating. Someone is aboard the ship, over," Batman said, gripping the steering gear of his plane tightly as he was forced to state Robin's condition out loud.

"I'll warn the-" Batman stopped listening to Superman's reply as a voice came over his ear-piece.

"-hear me? Hello?" a female voice said. Not Robin.

"Who is this?" Batman asked.

"Nevermind. This is Batman?"

"Yes," he said.

"Good. Please listen carefully. Robin is dying. Dead. I can save him, but I need two things from you. First, tell Superman to slow down by just 15%, so that I can move. Do that now."

Batman clenched his teeth. "Superman is helping get Robin to help sooner. Who are you?"

"I am help," the voice yelled. "Tell him to slow down or I can't help Robin!"

Batman looked down at his flashing console. It was true. Robin was dead. He took a steadying breath. "Superman, slow down by 15%, so that the team can help Robin, over."

"He needs the med-bay if he's hurt-"

"Slow down now, Clark!" Batman roared.

"Fine! How much is 15%? Does it have to be-"

"Just slow down, and I'll tell you when to stop," Batman said, pressing more buttons on his console to calculate Superman's speed. The speed began to fall. "Stop now."

"Ok, but are you sure I shouldn't fly faster?" Superman asked nervously. Batman ignored him; the female voice had begun speaking again. The part of his brain trained to think critically no matter the situation was already analyzing it. The voice sounded young. It wasn't familiar.

"Thank you, Batman. Second, I need you to fly to the coordinates I'm sending you now." Information coming from Robin's wrist-computer began to come up on his screen; she must be using it. His brain filed that piece of information away too: this young female could use Robin's tech. And the coordinates she was sending were close to him. "Land there and pick up the pod I've left there. It contains the rest of the equipment I'll need to save Robin. Your medical wing will not have this equipment, I can assure you."

Batman said nothing, angling toward the coordinates. A small thought bubbled up through the thoughts analyzing how organized and calm she sounded. It wondering what he'd do if he later found he'd been led on a wild goose chase while Robin's chances at resuscitation faded. "Why am I following your orders?" he asked, hating himself for asking such a foolish question. This person wasn't making him do anything. If it was the wrong decision, he alone would be to blame.

"Because you have nothing to lose. Robin is dead. Your medicines cannot save him. But you have the chance to find out if mine can," the girl answered.

Batman hovered over the coordinates, pressing the buttons needed to retrieve the rather large pod-like container which was indeed resting there in plain view on a ledge in the mountains near the home the team had visited. He waited until it was on board and he'd taken off toward the Watchtower to answer.

"You're wrong. I still have something to lose, and you will pay dearly if you've cost me it."

The stranger gave pause to that. "What could you have to lose? Not Robin's life."

"No," Batman said, switching the plane's com signal to Martian Manhunter's, whom he knew was on the Watchtower right now. _My last moments with him_ , he thought to himself. He turned his attention away from the ear-piece. The voice had said she needed only two things, and she'd gotten them. "Martian Manhunter, this is Batman. Come in, over."

"Batman, what is it?" J'onn replied.

"Superman should be arriving with the bio-ship at any minute. Robin is in critical condition. There is someone on board trying to save him. She is an un-known character. Make sure someone is there to receive them, but let her work uninterrupted. Within reason."

"I will receive them and see for myself what this stranger's intentions are," J'onn said.

"No. That doesn't matter now. I'm in the Batplane, and it won't fly in space. I don't have time to get to a zeta tube," Batman said as he approached altitudes at which not only would his means of propulsion not work as well but the atmospheric seal on his plane would be tested to hold in his oxygen.

J'onn paused. "I will come to retrieve you," he replied. "The bio-ship has just arrived. I am coming to meet you now."

* * *

The instant the bio-ship was docked, Superman and the other leaguers who had come to meet the ship began knocking on the hull and calling for M'gann to open the ship. It took her a moment to gather her concentration after the mental trauma of Robin's fatal injury and being forced to fly her ship immediately afterward, but she finally managed to open a small hole, which Black Canary wriggled through. In the back of the ship, the previously unnoticed figure worked tirelessly pumping Robin's chest and blowing air into his lungs. It was not helping keep him alive, but it was helping to keep his body in motion which would help move the chemicals she had injected into him to start the process. Robin looked strange. His uniform was itself red or else black, not designed to be absorbent, and was not showing the blood. His skin didn't show much blood either, because it had been washed off and dripped off his wet body. But it was pooled and smeared beneath him. It left a dark red trail where the force of flight had pushed him backward and, because he had already bled out significantly before ever being brought aboard, pooled beneath him just enough to outline his torso. It was as though someone had marked his body's position at a crime scene in red chalk. It gave the effect of impossibility. The harpoon and blood smears said his life was leaking away, but his still figure said otherwise. Black Canary startled as the girl gave a last breath to Robin then began giving orders.

"Black Canary, you help me get Robin to your medical wing. Leave the rest of the team to someone else," she ordered, already lifting Robin into her arms. Her small figure looked swamped by Robin's only slightly larger one, but she lifted him easily, walking smoothly toward the exit. "The Atlantean has the worst of it, and he only has a concussion."

Black Canary said nothing to this stranger. She jumped back down through the exit and extended her arms to receive Robin. She raised her arms to take him and blinked as blood splattered into her eyes. She gasped slightly in surprise when she realized what was dripping onto her and it ran into her mouth. She snapped it shut, refusing to swallow but without time to spit. She simply lifted her arms to take him. As Robin was lowered into her arms, her brain provided the necessary correction: to take his corpse. The boy was clearly dead. Her eyes widened, and she stared down at his ashen figure in her arms. So impossible.

The girl jumped down, reached up, and slapped her. As Black Canary reeled in surprise, the girl pulled Robin's body back into her own arms and began striding across the docking bay.

"I need you to lead me to the medical wing. Now! Move!" she yelled sharply.

Black Canary ran to catch up to her, passed her. "This way," she called over her shoulder, still running. The girl ran after her, slowed by the awkward load she was carrying. When Black Canary turned the first corner, she looked behind herself and had to force herself to wait for the girl to catch up. When she had, she took Robin back from her and began running with him herself. The girl said nothing and kept pace, satisfied that the woman had her head back on straight. Black Canary turned toward a set of double doors which opened automatically, running inside and past two beds to place Robin on the first of the beds for serious emergencies. She had him on the bed almost before the motion triggered lights lit up the blindingly white room. The girl began giving orders again as soon as she'd cleared the doors, squinting against the light.

"I need an oxygen mask on him. Intubate him if you have to; his lungs need to be moving," she said, beginning chest compressions again. "We'll also need a blood transfusion."

Black Canary pulled out the oxygen mask and equipment and began placing it, but then she saw the boy again and balked. "He's dead. A transfusion won't help. Oh hell, oxygen isn't going to help either!"

"Shut up, Dinah, and don't get hysterical. I know what I'm doing," the girl said calmly but without allowance for argument. "Get the equipment for the transfusion." She looked up as the doors slid open again. "Wonder Woman. I need extra hands. Please get blood of Robin's type for a transfusion. We'll need a lot of it. Where's Superman? When Batman arrives I will need him to help me remove this harpoon," she said nodding to the harpoon still protruding out of both sides of Robin's body.

Wonder Woman took in the scene, processing, before speaking. "Superman is…" She watched as a pale-faced Black Canary got out the equipment for a transfusion. "I'll tell him," she said, turning to open a refrigerator, get the blood, and also grab some equipment she understood would warm the blood before its entry into the boy's body. She pressed the com in her ear to contact Superman as she did so. The girl continued chest compressions, nodding to herself as Black Canary set up and Wonder Woman could be heard speaking to Superman. When Wonder Woman returned with the blood, she stopped her compressions. "Put that down on the bedside table next to Dinah and come take over the compressions." She reached into a pocket in the belt she was wearing, pulling out a syringe of yellow-green liquid, and reached up to the com in her ear as she prepped it. "Batman, where are you?" she asked. Wonder Woman looked up in surprise, and opened her mouth to say something when Superman burst in carrying Aqualad with the rest of the team filing in behind him. Instead of asking her question, Wonder Woman went to work on compressions, calling out questions about the team to Superman.

She didn't do this for long. The team saw who she was practicing CPR on and began asking their own questions. Wonder Woman told Superman to pull across the partition drape to hide Robin, he did so, and she ignored the continued yelling of the other children as she worked on the corpse, trying not to notice just how careful she had to be not to press too hard on his small frame. If she dwelled on that, his fragility would break her calm. She was a warrior. She would just have to act like it. She noticed Black Canary had forgone the use of the warming equipment any more than necessary to get the blood flowing. She pretended she didn't understand why. She was a warrior. She would just have to act like it.

The girl listened to Batman over her stolen com, then spoke again. "He's in the medical wing now. Don't come straight here. I'll need the equipment you're bringing set up in a place where it can remain undisturbed for a long while. Take it there as soon as you get here…ok, good, take it there now. I'll walk you through setting it up." She pressed to the needle tip to crook of the arm Robin was not receiving blood in and injected the contents. The skin of the inside of his elbow turned a soft yellow. "No, I'm working with Robin, I can't…" she huffed impatiently. "Fine, put the equipment where I said. You'll have to direct me to it, and I'll direct you on what to do with Robin." She threw the syringe violently into a trash can and pushed her way out of the room in a hurry, speaking into the com as she walked through the door.

* * *

"I'll be passing on some syringes to you," the girl said to her ear-piece as she walked. "Some contain a purplish liquid, some a yellowish liquid. The purple liquid needs to be injected into his temple anytime the color in the whites of his eyes starts to fade."

"Color in the whites?" Batman asked, his inner horror making his voice threatening. He pulled the heavy pod behind him as he made his way to his own private room in the Watchtower.

"That's what I said," said the girl impatiently. "They'll be slightly pink; they should stay that way. The yellow serum is more difficult to judge. He should need another injection of that in the inside of his elbow in…" she counted in her head, "seven minutes."

"And when after that?" Batman asked gruffly.

"He shouldn't need another before I've finished setting up the equipment. Where are you taking it? Direct me there."

"You've left the medical wing heading back the way you came," he said, not making it a question. "Take two rights and it's the first door on your left."

The girl backtracked and went left, since she'd passed up the first right already. Running down the white hallway, she took the next right, finding it to be a stairwell. She ran quickly up the stairs and was just about to ask if he'd given her the right directions because she'd have to turn again when she exited the stairwell, but when she exited she was at the end of a hall and there was only one door on the wall to her left. The door had a keypad instead of a doorknob, but she didn't have the code. She knocked and the door slid open. Batman surged out and towered over her, looking her over critically. He was the first person to really look at her since she had arrived. His lips thinned and his eyes narrowed as he looked at her, his fists clenched at his sides. She had known the sight of her would shock him. She had thought it would shock the others too. He said nothing about her appearance, but she knew she'd hear from him later. She held out the syringes to him; he took them and left. She skirted around the doorframe into the dark, spartan room and swept her eyes over it. Then she got straight to work.

She spent several minutes working in silence, a large cylindrical container connected to numerous lines of tubing taking shape. Next to it sat a very large canister divided into two segments: one full of more yellow-green liquid and one empty. She connected some of the tubing to the full side and some to the empty side. Then she took hold of a cord, plugging it in above the room's desk. Another cord she plugged into an outlet she found under the bedside table. She still had one cord, though, and nowhere to plug it in. For the first time since the events of this evening had begun, she felt a thrill of fear. She pressed her ear-piece, "Batman, I need a third outlet. Are there more than two outlets in here? I found one by the desk and one by the bedside, but I need a third," she said, breathing hard.

In the medical wing, Batman stopped watching blood flow through tubing and into his partner's arm to answer. "No. There's a surge protector with more outlets on it in the third drawer of the bedside table."

The girl lunged for the drawer and yanked it open. Rummaging inside it, she found the surge protector and unplugged the cord over the desk to plug it into the surge protector and the protector into the wall. Taking a deep breath, she plugged in the third cord. "Ok, I'm ready here," she said, reaching for a small bag that had also been in the pod and unzipping it. "Bring him and bring a way to get that harpoon out of his chest. Like Superman. We'll do that here. Have someone bring the blood transfusion equipment if there's any blood left to use." She received no answer, which made her heart race in fear again, but she reasoned that he had certainly heard her. He was ignoring her in favor of getting in motion. She began placing the articles in the bag on the desk, her hand shaking nervously as she did so. She'd have to steady her hand when Robin got here and she needed to work, but for now she indulged the nervousness that came with being so close to finishing this operation, to the life or death of Robin. And, if she was honest with herself, to facing the Batman's questions. They would come eventually, and even if she was prepared to answer she didn't know if she was prepared to emotionally handle it. He was even more intimidating than she remembered, but she'd never seen him this close before. She'd never been his partner's only lifeline before. And there would be questions from others too. She had called Black Canary by her name to shock her out of her grief, but it had been foolish. She'd then called her by her name again to Wonder Woman which had been just plain careless. If either of them thought about it long enough, they'd ask. She took a deep breath as she heard the door to the stairwell open. She steadied her hands. She buried her fear under impassivity. That could wait. She had a life to save.

The door opened and Superman entered, Batman behind him carrying Robin and Black Canary behind him carrying the blood transfusion equipment still trying to pump blood into him. They were all covered in blood as what was pumped into him leaked straight back out in moving him. Black Canary was the first to speak.

"The transfusion isn't working very well, because his heart isn't pumping," she said. She was still pale, but apparently she'd taken time to gather herself.

"That's fine," the girl said. "We need that harpoon out of him now. Put him directly into this," she nodded at the large cylinder, big enough for a person, she had set up, "as soon as it's out of him and you've stripped him."

Superman and Batman exchanged glances. Batman placed Robin on the floor and turned him onto his side, holding the boy's arms tight to his bloody torso. Superman's eyes glowed red as he stood over them. Lasers firing, he directed them across the harpoon's shaft, cutting it short. They would have to pull the harpoon completely through, but at least now there would be less metal to pull through. Superman knelt down and braced the boy as Batman gripped the spear end of the harpoon. Superman could have done that and Batman wouldn't have to risk cutting his hands on the harpoon, but he wasn't going to take the time to argue that. Batman certainly wouldn't take the time to listen. Batman pulled slowly at first, then growled to himself and yanked the harpoon out in one massive heave. Superman immediately lifted the boy up and Batman began pulling his suit and mask off him. Together they then placed him in the container.

The girl reached around the container and flipped a switch. The yellow-green liquid from the canister began to fill up the cylinder. She didn't bother trying to explain what was happening or what she was doing as she took a circular device from the desk, placed it just above his left breast, and pressed a button. It attached and began making small movements over his chest, whirring as it did so. It would keep his heart beating even while he couldn't breathe and no one could perform compressions. By now the liquid had risen over him completely. She took another small device from the desk and placed it over his face. This one pumped out the contents of his lungs while simultaneously pumping in the liquid surrounding his body. When bubbles and blood stopped pouring out of the pump and only yellowish liquid came out instead, she removed the device. As the liquid neared the edge of the cylinder's opening, she finally pulled out the transfusion tubing and shut the lid. A few moments later, the cylinder was completely filled and Robin lay still within it. The girl simply breathed, breathed in relief and the need to remain calm. She'd done it.

"Well?" a growling voice asked, interrupting her relief. She turned to face Batman with a jolt.

"That's it," she said carefully. "This equipment will keep him in living stasis to heal. The medium he's lying in will reinvigorate him, sustain him, and encourage his healing." She backed up a step. Batman had not moved, but she suddenly felt that he was entirely too close. "It…it will take time. Months, probably. But he will heal, and he will wake. I can assure you of that."

Batman practically radiated fury. "No, you can't. Who are you? How did you come to have this, this miracle cure. Why exactly," his voice dropped beyond his Batman-voice growl and into a real growl, "should I believe your assurances?"

The girl swallowed hard. "Because…it is true. I have seen this method at work. I myself have experienced it. It works." She did not explain that she had never been near death when this method had been used on her, nor needed the stasis chamber. She had only ever needed the injections, but she had seen the stasis chamber at work on others. It did work. It would work. "It's like cryogenics, only the patient can heal while in stasis."

Batman said nothing. For several moments, silence was a fifth occupant of the room. Then Black Canary stepped forward.

"You didn't answer his other questions. Who are you?" She paused, looking over her, and the girl knew she was trying to puzzle out how she knew her name. "And how do you have this equipment?" she asked.

"I am…" she paused briefly, "I am Raksha. It is the name the League of Shadows gave to me. This is their equipment."

At this, Batman did actually move. He stepped toward the girl. The girl stepped back two more steps, bumping into the desk. "Explain this," he said. He nodded his head toward her person in explanation. "Explain yourself." He looked at her critically once more, as did the others in the room for the first time.

They took in her fully black assassin regalia, light skin, and her bright blue eyes and short-cropped, gelled black hair. Her age was hard to guess. She was past puberty, but tiny. She looked boyish and if she wrapped her chest could probably pass for a boy. But not just any boy. She looked very like one boy in particular. "Explain yourself," Batman demanded again. "I'm asking you who you are, not what your name is." Batman's jaw impossibly hardened further, and all eyes in the room bored into her. "Raksha."

* * *

 **Author's Notes**

 **Thank you to KittyCat809 who gave me a nice and very thoughtful review. allGreekToMe as well! Thanks for the feedback, friendly!**

 **A note on a small thing. In my first chapter I used the word "comm" to refer to the communication devices the teams use, because I couldn't decide if it was "com" or "comm" and "comm" made more sense to me. I've since noticed that in the Batman and Robin comics Batman says "com". So. From this chapter on I am using "com". I highly doubt anyone noticed this, but if you did and it drove you nutso…sorry!**

 **One last nugget of trivia! If any of you have closely read The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, you should recognize the name "Raksha". It was the name of the female wolf who raised Mowgli as one of her cubs. The name, Kipling informs us, means "Demon". I haven't investigated the veracity of that definition, but I'm assuming it to be true.**

 **That's all for now!**

 **\- Lux**


	3. Chapter 3 - Running

_Six years ago._

 _The air lay stagnant and wet over the Shadow's mountain fortress. Rain would come soon when the winds on the other side of the mountain peaks sought to drive off the colder winds on the fortress side. A large group of assassins clad all in black herded a group of white-clad children onto the roof and into the cold, wet air. The children learned from these assassins for now. Soon they would each be given masters. Only one student already had a master, and her master stood in a corner watching carefully._

 _The children, all of various ages, eyed each other warily. They studied their competition. Today, they came in no cosmetics, no clothing aids for the girls, no styled or dyed hair. They came as they were. And they judged each other as they were. Children with black hair stared down children with light hair. Children with dark skin frowned at the proudly tilted chins of those with lighter skin. Blue eyes stared over the sneering mouths of some children as they peered into the dark eyes of others. All eyes alike measured heights, assessed musculature, guessed at level of acrobatic skill, wondered if there was any way to guess at someone's computer skills by looking at their fingers and wrists. These were their rivals. Each sought out the ways in which they were better than the others, even if it was only the shape of their chin. Each tried to hide their shortcomings, even if it was only their too-short neck._

 _The master in the corner watched her apprentice with interest as she too assessed her peers but attempted to hide nothing, sneered at nothing. Then one of the teachers pushed a young boy of about eight forward, and all together as if by signal the children began to cycle within the circle their standing teachers made. They made seven turns before one student pulled inside the circle and stood there. By instinct to keep moving, the other children kept cycling, but now all eyes were on the one student who had stepped away. They knew her. She was Talia's apprentice. Raksha, she was called. It was said that Ra's himself had given her that name, a name that meant "Demon". Before they had been chosen for this program, they would have been in awe of her, had been in awe of her from afar. Today, though, as they met her for the first time, they met as others who had been chosen specially. As they met on this rooftop, they met as equals. Their narrowed eyes watched her in careful anticipation. Her infamy guaranteed her no success here. They studied her dark eyes, her brown skin, her curly black hair cut short. She was short too. She was all wrong to be a Robin. She would be no threat to them._

 _Then suddenly, they all stopped where they stood. Raksha was smiling. The smile was open and kind. She turned in a tight circle so that she could smile at all nineteen of them. Then, she walked forward and began shaking hands with them, clapping them on their shoulders, giving her name and greeting them with silly word-play and cackling laughter._

 _As she made her way around the room giving a personal greeting to every baffled child there, the teachers nodded to each other and talked quietly in each other's ears. Talia smiled._

 _The other children, had they been wise enough to see it, could have known that day who would eventually rise above them all. Talia knew. The other teachers suspected. Only Raksha had known to finish her assessments quickly and seal them with a warm welcome._

 _For this is what Robin would have done._

 _The wind howled in the mountain peaks, and thunder sounded. From high on the rooftop, the children could feel the heavens shake. They had arrived on that rooftop as equals, but they would not leave so._

 **Running**

Dick pulled a green hoodie over his head as he got dressed. It was six months since the mission in the Alps, one since he'd woken from his rehabilitative coma, and he felt no pain or stiffness in his chest anymore. Actually, he never had. He'd been perfectly healed the moment he'd come out of that capsule. He was currently in his room at Wayne manor and had been practically quarantined there since he'd woken. Healed or not, another problem had kept him from going back to his civilian life or seeing any guests. It was normal and necessary, apparently, to be ill after the treatment he'd received. After so long in that chemical bath, his body had to eliminate the medium which had seeped so far into his body. At first, it had been terrifying. Constantly vomiting up his insides only to realize that it wasn't his insides at all but some foul-tasting yellow ooze had been anything but asterous. Which was to say nothing of any of the other ways his body had found it convenient to eliminate the chemicals. After a few hours, it became less terrifying and more painful and exhausting. A few days and it was . . . still painful and exhausting. A few weeks and it was annoying, down to just infrequent vomiting. After a month, it was just routine. He still felt the need to empty his stomach without warning sometimes, so he carried a few small trash bags in his pockets everywhere he went. The chemicals inside him had made his skin and breath stink, so he'd grown used to wearing strong cologne and periodically stopping to use mouthwash. Some days he'd take three or four showers. At least he'd stopped actually being yellow after the first two weeks awake.

The hellishness of his month hadn't been just due to his illness, though. It had been boring. There were times he'd wondered if sheer lack of anything to do wouldn't finish what the harpoon had started. His teammates couldn't speak to him – they didn't know who Dick Grayson was – and life went on for Bruce, but he'd used up his time looking into everything that had happened on that mission in France and some of what had happened afterward. Bruce had provided him with the reports and testimonials of all his teammates and the League members who had been involved that night. He was also able to hack into the League computers and pull out some video footage from the Watchtower and DuLacque's home security. The Watchtower images were not worth much. The girl had miraculously, surely not skillfully, managed to never face a camera. The security footage the League had lifted from the home in France had been good, though. Bit by bit, he'd pieced together answers to a lot of questions. A lof it came back to this girl who had saved his life. Raksha, Bruce said her name was. The home security footage had shown the girl had been the one to spot M'gann. Apparently she wasn't saying much to anyone wherever she was being held in confinement, but what she had admitted to Batman had included being a member of the League of Shadows. That solved that mystery. Dick wouldn't expect a Shadows-trained assassin to be fooled by Martian camouflage alone. The girl had been the one to alert the rest of the security force that his team had entered.

Well, the assassins hadn't actually been security. Robin hadn't missed his guess: the whole thing had been a set-up by the Shadows. DuLacque had not been an ally of the Shadows but a target. After they'd stripped away the framework of his wealth and killed him, the assassins had conveniently used the home as a place to catch his team off-guard. The person who had tried hacking him back had, as he'd also guessed, been part of the trap. The assassins had moved into position under the vents while he was distracted. They'd been ready when he crawled right over them.

Having read Connor and Kaldur's reports, he'd also learned of a few other mysteries the girl solved. She had harpooned the sharks. Then she had snuck aboard the bio-ship after Artemis, Wally, and Zatanna were on but before he, Connor, and Kaldur were. The assassins had stopped attacking of their own accord after his fall. Based on all of this, Bruce believed it was obvious that the girl was a plant, that the whole trap had actually been a ploy to get her in among the League, and Dick had to agree. But if so, it was a suspiciously obvious plant, and they had no idea what her objective was. That seemed to be the only question left. Today, Robin was going to get the chance to ask her. She'd been tight-lipped, but she had agreed early on that she would submit herself to any and all questions as soon as Robin was able to be present. Dick wasn't entirely sure why she had been given a choice, but Bruce hadn't been willing to elaborate further. Her hearing, so that Robin could be present as agreed, had been set for today.

Dick slipped his trash bags into his jeans pockets; scooped up his phone, wallet, and sunglasses; grabbed a black jacket off his coat-rack; and made his way down to the cave. Batman was waiting next to the Batmobile, so he hopped straight in. He would have been in uniform right now, except that he'd tried at one point during his convalescence to don it and do something productive. He'd been stopped before he'd even made it out of the house, and Bruce had confiscated all of his uniforms. The dark tint on the Batmobile, his shades, and the sheer speed at which Batman drove would be enough to protect his identity anyway. Batman leapt into the driver's seat and they were on their way to Gotham's zeta tube.

Batman kept glancing over at his ward as he drove. Dick finally rolled his eyes.

"What? I threw up in the Batmobile once," Dick said, "just once. You can stop looking at me like that; it's not like it was motion sickness."

Batman just stared forward at the road. "You didn't have to clean up the mess. It nearly ruined the upholstery," he said in his typical deadpan humor.

"I feel fine, Batman," Dick sighed, "honestly. Asterous."

"You should prepare yourself for this," Batman replied, ignoring Dick's statement. "This girl is . . ."

"An assassin, I know, but she saved my life. I can see that clear as day on the Watchtower security."

Batman frowned. "That's not what I was going to say, but since you bring it up she may have saved your life but we still don't know why. That alone should make you cautious."

"Yeah, about that," Dick said. "How has she been in confinement for six months but we still don't know what she wants or why she's here?"

Batman frowned. "I didn't say that. It's complicated. She's talked to me, but no one else, and I don't believe for one moment that she's told me everything. Hopefully we'll learn what we need to today, and we can get this over with and handled."

"Fine way to talk about the person who saved me," Dick said, frowning.

Batman's jaw tightened as he pulled into one of the places he liked to hide his vehicle when he took the zeta tube. "I don't need to be reminded of how much I owe her, Robin. That won't stop me from doing what I have to with her." With that, he exited the Batmobile and struck off toward the old phone booth. Dick scrambled out after him, not so much as blinking at Batman's statement. That was just the way Batman worked, and he was used to it.

"But you said she had talked to you about something at least," Dick pressed him. "And _I_ don't believe for one minute you'd be bothering with this hearing if you thought she meant anyone harm."

Batman stopped outside the phone booth. "That's what this hearing is to find out. Raksha asked that I not tell anyone what she told me with the understanding that she would eventually answer all questions when you could be present to hear. The fact that I allowed that compromise should tell you I don't take what she did for you lightly. But one thing I do know," he said turning to look at Dick, "is what she's told me she wants. I'll keep my end of this compromise and let her say it for herself at her hearing today, but I'm warning you to be prepared. Don't mistake her for a saint, Robin. She's anything but."

Dick stood still for a moment, then sighed and nodded. Whatever was going on, he supposed they'd all figure it out as soon as they got to the Watchtower and got this hearing started. He took Batman's silent command to zeta out first and waited on the other side as his mentor came through behind him.

* * *

As Batman and Robin stepped away from the zeta tube in the Watchtower, Robin was busy pondering everything Batman had just said, which was why he was taken by surprise when M'gann zipped into view and enveloped him in the absolute gentlest hug he thought he'd ever felt.

"Robin!" she cried. "We've all missed you so much! Are you ok? We heard you were healed, but . . ."

Robin grinned. "Sure am, Miss M. So you can stop hugging me like you're worried you'll break me."

M'gann giggled and squeezed him tightly, then pulled away. She turned as the rest of the team stepped into the hallway a little uncertainly. Zatanna was the next to move, jerking forward and practically collapsing on Robin. He tried to hold her comfortingly. It was a little awkward with everyone watching, but he supposed he'd died on her. She deserved to be cut a little slack. Still, he could see over her shoulder that Wally was about to vibrate a hole in the floor if he didn't get his turn, and Zatanna seemed to be too preoccupied trying not to cry to actually say anything. Robin gave his girlfriend a squeeze and pulled back a little, hoping she'd take the hint. As soon as she finally did and let go of him, he turned a blinding grin on Kid Flash.

"Dude, Wall-man! You miss me?" he asked. His last syllables were spoken through squished cheeks as Wally zipped forward before he'd even finished speaking, took his best friend's head in both hands, and leveled a very serious stare at him.

"Never. Do that. Again," Wally said.

"Um, dude," Robin said, "stop squishing my face and I won't."

"Good," Wally replied, nodding and dropping his hands. "As long as we understand each other." He smiled softly.

M'gann was sweetly trying to help Zatanna calm down, holding her while she finished the cry she had started when she'd hugged Robin, and Artemis was just stepping up when Batman swept forward from where he'd been waiting.

"We're starting in five," Batman said curtly as he passed through the small reunion on his way toward the council hall where the League held their meetings. The team collectively flinched. Robin guessed they'd been feeling the pressure the last six months after the thoroughly botched mission.

Artemis glanced at Robin who just shrugged, smirking. Artemis returned the smirk. "Staying traught?" she asked.

"You know it," Robin said with a wide smile.

"Good," Artemis said following where Batman had gone. "That's all I need to know."

Connor simply nodded to Robin and left, and most of the remaining team members took their cue to go too. Aqualad, though, stayed where he was as though rooted to the spot. Robin sighed. He had expected that Kaldur, as team leader, might have something more to say about what had happened.

"Kaldur. I saw the security footage from the house we raided. Thanks for the save," he said with a friendly smile.

Kaldur's jaw tightened. "I . . ." he paused, floundering for the words, "I did not save you, my friend. This stranger, who by all accounts should be an enemy, she saved you. I brought home your corpse." Robin opened his mouth to speak, but Kaldur silenced him with a gesture. "No, my friend. I made mistakes. You rightly said that I should not make you the new rendezvous, and I ignored you. I allowed myself to remain trapped, useless, in the underwater tunnels for fear of being discovered when we clearly already had been. And even if I had not made mistakes." He shook his head, eyes lowering to his bare feet. "What happens to this team is my responsibility." He took a deep breath and looked back up, his blue eyes boring straight into Robin's shaded ones. "I have always believed that I was holding the place of team leader for you. On that day, I almost cost this team the leader they deserve. We will speak later of you taking my place as leader of this team. Perhaps it is time."

Silence fell between the two. Robin was for once having a hard time thinking of something to say, and Kaldur had said everything he meant to. Finally, after a few moments, Robin spoke up softly.

"They're probably waiting for us in the council chambers," he said. Kaldur nodded and the two of them walked together to the meeting. Chairs had been added to the ones already at the oblong table to accommodate most of the league and all of the team. Each member of the team had been assigned a place beside their mentor, so Robin and Aqualad parted ways without a word and took their seats.

* * *

Looking around the room, Robin noticed there was still one person missing.

"Where's Black Canary?" he whispered to Batman. His mentor said nothing, but a moment later Black Canary walked in through a door toward the back, waiting there as the subject of this hearing herself came in. Robin never saw Black Canary take her seat. He had looked up the name "Raksha" to see if anyone came up. No one fitting what he knew of the girl had. He had found a reference in Rudyard Kipling's writing, though, and due to that he had been expecting someone a little more . . . exotic. He had not been expecting to be looking in a mirror. He felt himself go cold as his eyes, riveted on her, noticed hers riveted on him. When had she found him in the crowded room? Had he missed the moment she swept her eyes over the audience or had she known somehow where he'd be? He wondered briefly, through his tunnel-vision, if this was how Red Arrow had felt when he'd realized he was a clone. If he had felt like his world had ground to a halt and would never start again unless he figured out how this could be possible and where he fit into the explanation. But the moment, as shocking as it was, didn't last. Robin's detective training kicked in almost immediately, and he noticed what he hadn't seen at first. This person was certainly no clone. She wore a red hoodie, black skinny jeans, and tennis shoes and shades. There was no jacket, but he admitted that looked very like his own style. Her hair was cut and styled like his, and the skin tone was even the same. No, wait. She, and she definitely was a she, was wearing powder that matched his skin tone. Although his sharp eyes could tell she had the body of a trained acrobat and martial artist, her proportions also weren't his. She was shorter and not as angular. Her nose and chin weren't right. Her ears were smaller, which in another situation he might have had time to be envious of. In fact, he was beginning to wonder how he had ever thought she looked anything like him. He frowned in confusion.

"It's her posture," Batman said to him quietly. "Watch when she moves and you'll see it."

The girl finally stepped forward to the council table, and Robin saw what Batman meant. No, she wasn't his clone, but she could _move_ like him. His head spun with how disorienting it was. He got the feeling if he watched long enough he'd start to wonder if he was the one who didn't look like Robin. Part of him was very impressed. Part of him wished Batman had given him better warning. Either way, Batman didn't need to worry about him taking her lightly anymore. All his guards were up.

Batman stood up, apparently acting as chair of this meeting. "Six months ago, we knew nothing about this girl," he said in a voice that would carry. "We still know nothing," he said, fixing her with an intense stare. "She has agreed to answer any and all questions at this time, so I'll begin." Raksha stood up straight and tall in exactly the sort of way Dick would put his back up when scolded, and Batman's eyes narrowed threateningly at her. "State your name."

The girl hesitated, then spoke clearly. "That was not a question," she said in a juvenile voice pitched to be a little rough. Robin's jaw dropped ever so slightly open, and people in the room shifted uneasily. Even her voice mimicked his. And she was sassing Batman! He glanced up at his mentor for his reaction, but across the room Black Canary's voice rang out.

"You are not here to test us!" she yelled, standing up in anger. "What is your name?"

The girl smirked and cocked her head slightly before replying. "Thank you for your question. It's Raksha, but I have been called Meredith. Raksha was the name given to me when I became a true apprentice to the Shadows." Black Canary was practically shaking with anger, Green Arrow trying to get her to sit down. Robin would have found Canary's loss of temper surprising if he had noticed, but he hadn't. He was thinking. The girl wasn't sassing Batman at all. She was treating this like an interrogation. Like _he_ would treat an interrogation. Robin swallowed and stood up next to Batman. He asked the only question on his mind.

"How are you doing this?" he said. The room went quiet. For most of those present, this was the first time they had heard his voice in six months. This girl's imitation aside. His voice had been soft, but Raksha had heard it clearly.

"I have been trained to do this," she said, shrugging and glancing briefly at Batman.

 _So she hadn't completely believed that Batman had told no one what she'd said to him_ , Robin thought. He looked up at Batman, who nodded and sat down.

"Trained by whom?" Robin asked. "And why?"

"Many people," she answered, finally taking the questions seriously. "To destroy you."

Robin blinked confusedly at that, but he was finally getting his feet underneath him. Talking to this girl had the strange effect of counteracting the confusion her appearance and movements cause him, as though his brain at least could tell that if he was talking to her she must be another person entirely. Not Robin. "That doesn't make sense," he said flatly. "If you wanted me dead, I would be."

Her lips thinned thoughtfully, and she seemed to mimic his confused blink. "That . . . was also not a question."

Robin smirked. "And here I thought you were just giving everyone else a hard time. Wasn't I the one you really wanted to talk to? Well, I'm here. And apparently you're a little obsessed, so go ahead and get this off your chest. Talk to me. You've got my attention." He was hoping to get a real reaction, not a Robin reaction, out of her, and he got one. She went stone still. Her lips twitched, and she gritted her teeth. He imagined her eyes behind her shades glaring daggers at him. It grated on him that he couldn't help imagining those eyes looking like his.

"There was a question in there," she finally ground out, voice dripping anger. "Yes, you are the one I wanted to talk to."

"Why?" Robin asked immediately. If she was going to treat this like an interrogation, he'd treat her to one.

"Apparently, because I'm obsessed," she said, smirking.

"No, not apparently. That was my conclusion. I want yours," Robin fired off.

Her smirk fell. "Well, you said it was apparent," Raksha said.

"No, I didn't," Robin said.

The girl hesitated, thinking. Then she huffed a small laugh that could have turned into his cackle if she'd wanted it to. "Yes, you did. You should pay better attention if you're going to try to give me the run around." She smiled at him, then, not unkindly, and Robin had a thought.

"Whatever. If you want me dead, why did you save me?" he asked carefully.

"False premise," the girl said, still smiling. "I don't want you dead."

Robin frowned. "But you said-" he stopped, thinking. He needed to consider more carefully. She was as good at word-play as he was. "You said you wanted me destroyed. Fine. If you want me destroyed, why did you save me?"

"Destroyed doesn't have to mean dead," she said, voice falling soft. "And, again, I never said I wanted to."

Robin huffed in frustration and looked up at the ceiling. "Ok, so you're going to- wait, scratch that. Are you going to destroy me?"

"I hope not," the girl said.

Robin looked at her and just stared. She stared back. He broke out into a smile. "Wait. The League of Shadows wants me destroyed. They trained you to do this. They planted you here to do this. But you don't want to. Is that right?"

She smiled, her Robin-like face looking almost motherly. It was odd seeing that on a copy of his face. "Took you long enough," she teased.

"Well, it would have gone faster if you didn't insist on everything I say being a question," he said, teasing her back. "You do realize that everyone in this room knows the reason you're insisting on questions is so that you are not forced to give away as much information?" To his right, Wally made a noise of surprise. Robin and the Robin copy both watched each other struggle not to smile. "Ok, well, most everyone in this room knows that," Robin corrected himself.

"Yes, I realize that," Raksha said, nodding.

"Then why do you still insist on it?" Robin said, spreading his hands questioningly. "If you're not here to destroy me, then you saved me, and I'm thankful for that. I know many people here are. Do you want us to not trust you? Because as thankful as we are, there are still people in this room who don't trust you." Suddenly, he remembered his conversation with Batman in the Batmobile. He remembered the words Batman had opened this hearing with, and it hit him. All her answers made everything sound fine, but whatever she was hiding would make it sound less fine. That was the true side effect of only answering questions: she was only telling him what he wanted to hear.

"Everyone has their secrets," the girl said, but she was no longer smiling. She had seen the change in Robin's demeanor, knew what it meant.

Robin gritted his teeth and sat down. He looked over at Batman, and his mentor took his silent cue to take over. Robin himself crossed his arms, sat back in his chair, and closed his eyes. It was time to start distrusting this girl, and no one would do that better than Batman.

"Who trained you?" Batman asked sharply.

"Many people," Raksha said.

"So you said. Who specifically?" Batman pressed her.

She frowned. "Many people you probably don't know."

"Try me," Batman growled.

"One you do know. My master was Talia al Ghul. She oversaw all my training," Raksha replied. So far they were repeating information he already knew, so she wasn't surprised he leapt straight into his next question.

"Past tense?" Batman asked.

Raksha gave him her best Robin shrug. "That's what I said."

"Were you intentionally planted here by the League of Shadows using the trap of DuLacque's home?"

"We've already established that. Yes, I was," Raksha replied curtly.

"And was the sparing of Robin's life also intended by those who sent you?" Batman asked. Robin cocked his head in surprise at that question, but kept his eyes closed.

Raksha hesitated a moment. This was not a question he had asked her before now. "Yes," she said.

"Did you steal the equipment necessary to save Robin?" Batman asked.

"No," Raksha replied.

"Then, did the League of Shadows give you that equipment for exactly that purpose?"

Raksha paled, finally seeing what was happening. She needed to be viewed as positively as possible after this, but she'd lost her finger-hold on the course of this hearing in just a few short questions. Robin may not have given her the run-around, but Batman was doing just fine at it. "Yes," she answered after a moment. She watched as Robin's mouth formed a hard line. She had lost. And the Batman wasn't even done yet. He knew so little, she'd told him so little, but he was still going to pick her apart.

"How were you chosen for this mission?" Batman asked next.

"There was a contest," she answered, ignoring the thrill of fear at this question and choosing her words carefully.

"A contest," he repeated. "So there were other contestants?"

She couldn't help it. She went cold, and it felt as though her knees might buckle underneath her. She waited for them to. But of course they did not. She had not been trained to give in to her emotional responses, but the fact remained that she had responded emotionally. She looked at her questioner in a dull, removed horror as she saw what was coming. He had seen through her response, steady knees or no, and knew he'd hit on something important, hurtful. He was going to keep digging until he found out what.

"Yes," she said softly.

"How many?" Batman asked, to all the world uncaring that he had found a wound and was digging in it. It was like looking at a crushing weight falling on his own partner's shoulders, but he had grown used to having his responses tugged at by her Dick impersonation after just the first time he'd questioned her. He no longer allowed it to bother him.

"Nineteen others," Raksha said quickly.

"How were you chosen above nineteen others?" Batman asked.

"I had the appropriate skill set and . . . attributes. To greater degree than the others," she answered, still trying to get around the issue even though she knew he wouldn't let her.

"With what sort of contest were your 'attributes' tested?" Batman said, finally asking the worst question. She steeled herself visibly.

"We were placed together in . . . a location, and required to engage each other in combat," she said.

A derisive voice cut across the room from the opposite side of Batman. "Do we even want to know how that ended for the other nineteen?" Green Arrow asked, his face pale with anger. Next to him, Black Canary was glaring at her hands in her lap. All eyes in the room but Robin's locked on this new questioner, including the subject of the questioning. She dimly recognized the humor of her situation as the shock of being asked this question by this man saved her from the hold Batman had been quickly tightening on her.

"No," she answered calmly, truthfully.

"No, I didn't think so," Green Arrow spat. "Did you slaughter them all or did you have enough pity to leave a few to squabble amongst themselves for a while until they died? That is to say, I'm a little unclear on the actual rules of this contest. Maybe you'd like to tell us exactly how it worked? Did you have to kill your mark in under a certain time frame? Was it a free for all or round-Robin style? Oh, sorry," he laughed nastily, "no pun intended. Maybe you'd like to regale us with your finest kill from the event," he said, leaning forward on his knees, hands in tight fists.

Raksha fought with the fury and wailing despair that rose up in her. It was placeless. It was baseless. It was needless. It threatened to overwhelm her, but in the months that had passed since she had survived that final trial she had stopped trying to make sense of these feelings. She knew that there were reasons for them; there was a reason it made her so angry she could kill all over again and so lost she could make herself the one she killed in that fit of anger. But she had long exhausted the energy to discern why. It just did, and it was worse than useless to feel that way now. She felt herself falling into a place safe from any emotion at all. She had trained and lived in this place for years. Perhaps she should have been in this place from the beginning of this interrogation and saved herself a lot of confusion, hope, and pain. No matter, she was there now. This place of calm had saved her from falling to pieces during the final trial itself as she killed five children in cold blood, and it would save her now.

She looked back at Green Arrow with a dangerous calm. "Green Arrow. Do you have something to say?" Raksha asked.

The archer's mouth opened then closed again in disbelief. He swallowed thickly then stood, turning away from the object of his anger and toward his fellow heroes. "If we're on the subject of the character of this _assassin_ ," he said, "I do have something to add. Black Canary and I have both met this person before. About five years ago, she brought a hit list and a team of assassins to Starling City. I intervened and was able to take out her team of assassins, but she lived to confront me for getting in her way. And by 'confront' I mean shoot me in the leg and threaten to blast my brains out to get Black Canary to help her take out the rest of the names on her list." He placed a hand on Black Canary's shoulder, seemingly without noticing he'd done it. "And if you're thinking that killing is all she's good at, you'd be wrong. Turns out even that was a ploy! She had Black Canary, as a civilian, drag one of the names into court on a fraud charge, so that she could snipe him while he was in court. But she did it in such a way as to start a whole gang war right then and there in the courthouse and almost got Canary killed! I offered . . ." he swallowed, blushing with shame, "I offered to take the list myself. Demanded it. It was only after I'd killed every person on that list that I realized she had used Canary to manipulate me into doing her dirty work." His hand tightened on Black Canary's shoulder as he wheeled on the assassin who was watching his tirade impassively. "You are a cold-blooded murderer and a _manipulating_ witch! And I'm not even sure why we're letting you explain yourself! So you murdered a few kids? I for one am not surprised!" He turned back toward his fellows. "And the longer we let her talk the more time we give her to work us over, manipulate us into doing what she wants."

"You forget," Raksha said calmly, pausing as he turned stiffly back to her, "that you were killing long before I manipulated you into doing it for me. And you forget that the reason you noticed me and my team on our very first hit was because you were there too. My list was your list. You're a cold-blooded killer too."

"I _was_ ," Green Arrow ground out. "Emphasis on "was". Meeting you was certainly a wake-up call. But I can see you haven't changed a bit."

Green Arrow was still staring her down and she was still bearing it bravely, when a voice cut to her heart yet again. "How did they die?" Robin asked, still not looking at her.

"Badly," she answered softly, turning away from him after a glance and back to Green Arrow. She could take his hate. "And that is all I will say about it. I'm certainly not going to go into gory details, and in any case," she smiled ruefully at Green Arrow as she answered one of his earlier questions, "I only killed five of them. For the rest, my estimations of how they died would be guesses."

From near the front door, Wonder Woman spoke up for the first time. "Why? To what purpose would the League of Shadows arrange such a contest? To discover the best copy of Robin in order to destroy him? I do not understand."

"Yes and no," Raksha said, turning toward the new questioner. "To discover the best of us to take the mission of destroying Robin, yes. But not to discover the best copy of Robin. The honor of being the best copy belonged to someone else. I was the one to kill him." She forced herself not to dwell on the sight of his crushed body six floors below her. He had been one of the ones with true blue eyes. "It was never the intention of the Shadows to create a copy of Robin. They wanted to create a destroyer. The copying was simply a side-effect."

"Of what?" asked Wonder Woman.

"Of of one of the oldest military principles: know your enemy," Batman said. "The Shadows didn't want a Robin copy. They wanted someone who knew Robin well enough to destroy him. So they taught a group of children how to be Robin then pitted them against each other to see who would rise above the rest."

As Wonder Woman sat back, looking troubled, Robin sat forward in his chair, feeling suddenly defensive. "But a copy isn't the real thing," he blurted out.

"No," Raksha said, forcing herself not to look at him. "It's not."

Robin hesitated a moment, then abruptly stood up. "Then get this over with. Let's have it out right here. No copy is going to be able to take me out."

"Robin!" Batman said, his voice like a whip. "You haven't been listening. She's not a copy of you, and this is ridiculous. Sit down."

Robin just gritted his teeth. "I have been listening, actually. And I think we've gotten back to square one. So we don't trust her. Makes sense. But are we worried about her? Are we concerned that she can really do what she's been trained to do? Well, there's only one way to find out. No one here is actually going to let her kill me." He looked around the room at the assembled heroes. "So let's see her try."

"No," Batman said, eyes narrowing in warning.

"Batman," Robin said looking up at his mentor calmly, "I want to know where I stand here. We've just learned that the League of Shadows has spent probably years coming up with a way to end me. Why, I have no idea, but I want to know if I stand a chance. This girl was trained by Talia al Ghul herself. To destroy me. I have to know if I'd be dead right now under any other circumstances. I died once," he said without pause, "I want to know if I'm in danger of dying again or if I can hold my own."

The room went silent. That seemed to be happening a lot today. Robin blushed, suddenly feeling oddly guilty for what he'd just said. He hadn't meant to throw the death card – he hadn't in the whole last month ever given it much thought –, but suddenly he was being faced with the idea of not an accidental or job-hazard death but an assassination and death mattered. He probably could have phrased that better, though, if he'd had the time to think about the sudden shift in his perspective. He ducked his head away from Batman's piercing gaze and snuck a glance at Kaldur. The look on his leader's face made him wonder if Aqualad still intended to force him into the leader position or if he'd now decided Robin would be better off retired. Feeling like he'd said enough, Robin waited for Batman to refuse again, but the refusal came from elsewhere.

"No," Raksha said. "I understand your argument, but if you want to see what I'm capable of I'd rather spar with Batman."

At first, Robin just blinked at the sheer oddity of that statement. Then his face grew even more red. She wanted to "spar"? And she'd rather match up against his mentor like she'd already decided Robin wasn't worth her time.

Suddenly the floor seemed to explode in front of him, he was blown backward, and a solid wall with arms caught him. He squinted through temporarily blinded eyes at the arms holding him. It was just Batman. And the soot from the small explosion left a mark on the tiled area of floor within the oblong meeting table. He blinked. He hadn't even realized that he had leapt onto the table in his anger and tried to rush the girl. The whole room was standing, but Green Arrow's raised bow, already knocked with another arrow, made it obvious who had intervened. For her part, Raksha was standing all the way against the chamber's windows at the far end of the room. She looked troubled, but she wasn't so much as wind-blown. She must have already been moving away before the explosive arrow even hit.

"Running?" Robin asked, sneering.

"Enough, Robin!" Batman growled. Oddly, it was Green Arrow he was glaring daggers at, though. "Tell us what you want, girl," he said.

Raksha looked back and forth between Green Arrow and Batman nervously. "You . . . I already told you-"

"And you're going to say it again for the benefit of everyone here," Batman interrupted, turning his glare on her.

She visibly flinched, but collected herself with admirable speed. "As I told you." Her voice was calm again, even cold. "I want what he has. I want the home, the cave, even the team."

Only Batman was not surprised. The room collectively turned toward him, waiting for the shoe to drop on her for asking such a thing, practically demanding it, after everything she'd admitted. But it never did.

"And in exchange, you won't kill him," Batman said, matching her cold demeanor. "Is that it?"

"No," Raksha said. "I'm offering more than that. In exchange, I'll help you keep him alive."

"You," Batman pointed out, "are the biggest threat."

"One of them," Raksha said, shaking her head. "A good reason to keep me close."

The other occupants of the room started to stir from their shock at Batman entertaining her proposition, but Batman released Robin and held out his hand in a demand for quiet before anyone even opened their mouths.

"Why?" he said. "Why turn on the Shadows, expose yourself to the League and old enemies," across the room Green Arrow subconsciously tightened his grip on his bow, "and open yourself up for the biggest hero organization and the biggest crime organization in the world to both be out for your blood?"

Looking back into Batman's veiled stare, Raksha struggled against the fear slicking over her shell of calm. Until she looked away from him and at Robin for the first time in several minutes. Her eyes widened. Robin probably didn't know it, but standing in front of his mentor he radiated confusion right now, not anger, not fear, not apprehension. She was tempted to smile. Robin knew the Batman better than anyone, and judging by him she could tell that Batman was no longer threatening her with his questions. This time he was just giving her a chance to talk, and she'd need to choose her words wisely. She didn't expect him to ever give her another chance to recover from her spectacular exposure to the League as a loathsome murderer. She took a breath and directed her gaze back to Batman.

"Because I had a life, and Ra's al Ghul and his daughter took it from me. Then they didn't even bother to replace it with a new one. I was a child when I lost my family to a disaster the League of Shadows was responsible for." In her mind, the memory of the massive tidal wave the Shadows had created to wash over her coastal city was blurry and faded. So many of her memories had been corrupted by what her mind had endured to think like Robin. "They called it social justice, a cleansing. I was too young and lost to care if they were right. Ra's saw promise in my anger and took me in. He had me trained. When I showed still more promise, he promoted me to his daughter's first apprentice, a teenager to be trained by a teenager." Seeing the confusion on the faces in the room, she added, "I'm older than I look. Talia wasn't yet the woman she is today. Or maybe she was. She was a jealous teenager who had just been handed authority over an upstart she worried her father had vested interest in. She handled that by staying my physical growth at thirteen years of age, one day's chemical injection at a time. Because she was my master, no one needed her to give a reason, but she gave me reasons. I believed them. So if you're asking why I want out of the Shadows, I don't have a simple answer to that, but it would have a lot to do with being tired of being someone else's tool.

"On the other hand, It was years later before Talia finally saw fit to replace the life that had been taken from me with a new one, and it wasn't even my life. The program into which I was placed was designed, as you said, to make me know Robin inside and out. They went as far as they had to to achieve that. We weren't just trained to fight like Robin, we were trained to act like him, move like him, talk like him, think like him, and when they decided even that wasn't enough they tried to teach us to _feel_ like him. They took our trainers, loaded them into helicopters, flew them twenty feet into the air over a mountainside, and made us stand and watch them be dumped out. So we could watch them fall."

She paused, wondering if she'd said too much that could lead back to Robin's family history, then thought of Robin and charged ahead anyway. She shouldn't let him dwell on that memory. "Even our fears weren't allowed to be our fears. You know how it is with the Shadows. Sooner or later they make you face your fears, but we were different. The fears we faced weren't ours; they were his. I'm not sure I even remember what I used to be afraid of. Now I'm afraid of things that have nothing to do with me. So if you're asking why I would want to help you keep Robin alive, I . . . fear, for him. At this point, killing him would be like killing myself. Which," she grimaced, "I would do if I thought it would help."

Batman waited to see if she was finished, then asked the question most important to him. "And why wouldn't it help?"

Raksha slowly blinked. This time Batman let her remind him of a young Richard Grayson when he was still a boy just starting to want to become something more. Dick had accepted Batman's philosophy about killing, had made it his own. Raksha wasn't Dick, but if she was to have what she wanted she'd need an answer to this question that at least showed she had the potential to do the same.

"Frankly," Raksha said, confused by the question and unaware that she was being tested, "because the League of Assassins won't stop just because I'm gone. The threat of death won't end with my death, but my life can still be useful."

No one but Robin was watching Batman at this point. Only Robin saw the tiny upward twitch at the edge of Batman's mouth, and his eyes widened as he realized what this meant. There was going to be a new bat in the cave.

Batman brushed past Robin on his way to the door. Robin followed, recognizing this as the cue that they were leaving. So when Batman paused on his way through the room and said, "We're leaving," before continuing on in his long strides, Robin recognized it wasn't for his benefit. So did the girl, who pushed off the window and sprinted around the table as though afraid Batman would change his mind. Then, the rest of those present realized what was happening. Shouted protests crashed over the room. The loudest was Green Arrow; the shrillest was actually Zatanna. The most comprehensible was Wonder Woman.

"Batman, we still have not decided how to deal with the girl!" the Amazon shouted over the chaos.

"The League can decide what they want," Batman said, "I've made my decision." With that, he passed through the doors, Robin behind him, and Raksha a short distance behind him.

Robin, though, pulled to the side of the hallway near the zeta tube, watched Batman zeta out, and then just stood there. Raksha took the hint from the boy's hard stare and went next. Robin waited. As he'd expected, Zatanna came running down the hall alone, but she wouldn't be alone for long and Batman didn't like waiting. He'd have to make this quick. His girlfriend was practically hysterical, so he spoke first.

"I don't like it either, but this is Batman's decision," Robin said.

"She's dangerous! We all heard it!" Zatanna cried. "You're taking a killer with you!"

Robin sighed. "I know, Zee, but you know how Batman is. Firstly, he's not going to change his mind, and secondly," he placed a firm hand on her shoulder, "he's not going to let anything happen to me."

Zatanna looked murderous at first, but then she seemed to wilt under the weight of Robin's hand. "Then where was he when you . . . I can't lose someone else, Robin. I really can't." Her eyes grew desperate. "You can stay at the mountain then! You don't have to go back with them!"

Robin dropped his hand in surprise. "I have to go home, Zee. Not . . . I mean . . . well, you don't. That's why you and Connor and M'gann are at the mountain, but there are . . ." he grimaced, realizing he was saying this all the wrong ways, "people waiting for me. Look, Batman is waiting; I have to go. We'll talk later?"

Zatanna looked absolutely stung. She nodded. "Yeah. Later. Later we'll talk about how you died and Batman's going to get you killed again and I have no home or anyone waiting for me, not even you. Just go."

"Zee, that's not . . ." Robin tried.

"Just go," Zatanna said, turning away from him and battling against tears.

Robin sighed. "See you, Zee." He turned and zeta'd out, the call of his name and identification number the most comprehensible words Zatanna had heard all day. They meant nothing more nor less than that Robin was gone. Again. Too bad they couldn't tell her if she'd see him again.

* * *

Making his way toward the Batmobile, Robin saw that both Batman and Raksha were already in it. At least his front seat spot was still open for him. A distracted part of his mind wondered what the new girl would call herself. The world at large might not know it yet, but there was already a Batgirl Gotham was just becoming aware of. For that matter, he wondered how Barb would handle this.

Climbing into his seat, the roar of the engine didn't drown out the hum in his ears as everything that had happened in the last however long – did it even last an hour? – washed over him. He was keenly aware that he'd have his back to his personal assassin for the whole drive home. So much for at least still having his front seat spot. Now he wished he had the back seat. Or better yet that Batman had never redone the Batmobile after Batgirl joined so that she could have a seat. He reached into his pocket and gripped one of his small trash bags tightly, but for the first time in a while the nausea settling in his stomach had nothing to do with any residual yellow ooze.

* * *

 **Author's Notes**

 **Quick complaint: this chapter gave me so much unnecessary grief. Blech.**

 **Also, I thought this might be a good time to point out that, if it's not obvious by now, I'm drawing from a smattering of different places for the continuity and setting of this story. The great thing about writing Young Justice fanfiction is that the show is completely off canon, making it easy for fans to throw in or toss out anything from canon or other AU that they like and really play with it. For example, a small thing I toyed with was what to call Ra's organization. I'm drawing some inspiration from the Dark Knight trilogy, though, so I went with League of Shadows as a nod, instead of League of Assassins, even though I'll be drawing almost entirely from the comics for the assassins later on. Something perhaps bigger, at least in Raksha's backstory at this point, is the influence the show Arrow is having on my story. But while I like the show and want to let it influence me, I'm trying to keep the story open to being understood as a stand-alone. So when Green Arrow says Canary was manipulated into bringing a crook into court, that can be read that she was the defendant or it can be read that she was the attorney for the defendant. The downside to Young Justice being such an open canvas is that it's easy to get turned around trying to make things make sense! I apologize if that ever happens. :p I'm trying hard not to let it.**

 **A quick shout-out to allGreeekToMe who gave an intense review of my last chapter (not posted for public consumption; sorry!) . . . and then softened that review with a funny joke about the classic live-action Batman's use of Bat-shark-repellant and how Robin really could have used some of that in chapter one. -_- I apologize to everyone ever for unintentionally creating a situation in which Bat-shark-repellant could be a legitimate need. Yeesh. Haha!**

 **\- Lux**


	4. Chapter 4 - Settling

_Five years ago._

 _Somewhere in the basement of a Chinese style fortress flood-lights cut through solid darkness. They illuminated a system of thick wires and bars and towers, a trapeze. Through solid silence, a voice, too, cut, sharp and unforgiving._

" _Again!" the master yelled, a disembodied voice somewhere in the shadows left by the bright lights._

 _The young girl standing on one of the towers, trapeze in hand, found it hard not to imagine the flood-lights and sharp voice cutting through the wires themselves. She took a deep breath and set aside her fears. She would not lie to herself – she knew what a fall from this height would do. She had seen it twice. But fear would not help her now, so she would face it later. Anyway, she had a net. Chalked hands gripped the bar expertly as she swung free of the tower. She performed several simple jumps from one bar to the other and back. She did not try any tricks as she gained momentum and breathed in the rhythm of the wires and bars and her own body. Her master only needed one trick out of her, and she was focused wholly on it. She flew higher and higher, slowly and steadily climbing, back and forth and back and forth. Finally, she leapt for the next bar and fell from her climb differently this time. She flipped. Once. Twice. Thrice. And –_

 _She was only halfway through the fourth turn when she passed the next bar by and fell. She let herself relax as she hit the net below. Rolling over, she crawled to the edge of the net and lowered herself to the floor, holding back shivers from adrenaline, waiting humbly for her rebuke._

" _I considered," Talia said, emerging from the shadows, "taking down the net while you were up there. You certainly took your time enough to allow me to." She was dressed all in black, as usual, so that the shadows seemed to clothe her themselves as she stepped clear of them._

 _Raksha held her breath, the only sign that she was now struggling to hold back shivers for an entirely different reason._

" _Back up there," Talia barked. "Do it again, and do it right."_

 _Raksha climbed the tower again, steady in body but shaky in mind. It did not help her not to look down, and it did not help to think that there was far too much invested in her by now for her master to let her fall to her death. The former did not stop her from knowing in her mind's eye exactly what she'd see if she did look down. The latter was simply not true. She wasn't disposable, but if she let anyone believe she was defective she wouldn't have to be._

 _She chalked her hands again, brought the bar back up, and swung out again. Steadily she climbed again. Steadily she waited until she'd gained enough height. Then she began again, flipping on and downward toward the next bar. Once. Twice. Thrice. And –_

 _She missed. She fell. This time there was no net._

 **Settling**

Dick was the first one out of the Batmobile when it finally came to a stop in the Batcave. He vaulted out of it, but he stumbled on his landing, continued to stumble to the nearest edge of the platform, then knelt to puke over it. Raksha, concerned he might topple over, unbuckled to follow him but paused when she saw that Batman had already beaten her to it. She watched as an interaction unfolded which would become, in its nature, familiar to her in time but which before now she had never had the opportunity to see: the Batman handled his partner gently. He took Dick's hood in one hand and hovered his other hand just under the boy's chest, prepared to catch him if he fell but not crowding him as he caught his breath and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Raksha actually jumped in surprise when Dick broke the calm, wheeling on Batman like a small fury. The Batman, she noticed, did not jump.

"You could have at least said something," Dick yelled as he stood up. Standing, he was just taller than Batman was kneeling. It didn't seem to affect the height difference to Raksha's eyes. Batman still seemed taller.

"You knew all along, didn't you, that you were going to do this?" the boy raged. "You could have said something! You didn't think maybe I needed to know that you were planning on taking on a third partner? And she's an assassin!" Dick threw his hands up in frustration. Batman pulled off his cowl. "I should've been told. Alfred should've been told! What's he going to think about this?" Dick paused to catch his breath and watched Bruce struggle to find the words to say. The man reached to his belt and Dick widened his stance instinctually, but all Bruce did was hit a button which slid the Batmobile's hood closed again over his new charge in the hopes the insulation of the vehicle would keep her from hearing some of this. All in all, Bruce didn't look surprised by Dick's question.

"No," Dick said as the truth dawned on him. "No, no, no, Alfred knows, doesn't he?" Dick's feet slid slightly farther apart again, as though he were trying to brace himself against his own anger. "But you didn't think to tell me!"

"Dick, it's not like that," Bruce said, finally finding his voice. "Yes, Alfred knew, but I wasn't entirely sure until today that I would do this and you were recovering. It wasn't the time to talk to you."

"And now is?" Dick burst out. "After you've already gone and done it? What – . . ." his mouth worked, trying to find the words. "What exactly screams good idea to you about this?"

Bruce frowned. "You seemed plenty thankful to her earlier for saving your life."

"We know she's a plant," Dick yelled.

"Sure, but we knew that earlier too, and you were still grateful," Bruce reasoned.

"Well, I'm not grateful enough for this!" Dick paced out from between Bruce and the ledge, then turned toward Bruce again. "She could kill me, and you're putting her in costume and, what, adopting her?" His eyes widened as his brain fully caught up to that prospect. "You . . . you are, aren't you? That's what this is; you're adopting her."

"Well, yes," Bruce sighed, running a hand through his cowl-flattened hair. "I don't intend to trust her in costume just yet, no, but the idea . . . is to bring her into this home, yes."

Dick swallowed hard. "Then . . . then, what? Raksha, or wait would it be Meredith? That's what she was called before. So your new ward is, what? Meredith . . . Meredith who?" He jerked his head agitatedly. "Do we even know her last name? Who's the new kid even going to be?"

"Dick," Bruce interrupted the boy's rambling, "she has a family name. Or had one, but we can't use it. It would be traceable, and since her age doesn't match her appearance and she's thought to be dead we don't want the name traced. The story I've come up with for where I found her doesn't mesh with the idea of creating a new name for her either, so she'll have to take –"

"No," Dick interrupted, pale and furious. "Don't say it."

Bruce blinked in surprise. He hadn't guessed exactly how hard Dick would take this. "I . . . Dick, it's the only thing that makes sense. It doesn't mean –"

"It doesn't mean anything?" Dick growled. He turned and stormed off the platform, nearly bowling over Alfred in the process. The butler had come as soon as he'd realized the two men of the house, and possibly a new miss, had returned, and he watched as Dick practically ran out of the cave and into the house.

"Well," Alfred said, turning back toward Bruce. "I take it you did indeed decide to take charge of the young lady? That could have gone more to plan, I think."

Bruce frowned. "You think? And what plan exactly?" he asked, sighing. "Was there a plan to make this go well?"

"I take your point, Master Bruce," Alfred replied. "For now, where is the young lady?"

"In the car," Bruce said. "I didn't want her to have to hear that." He pressed a button and the Batmobile slid open again.

Raksha waited for Bruce's nod of permission before climbing out and looked around questioningly as though surprised that Dick was no longer there. She thought it best if neither man knew for fact that she had heard every word. The look the un-cowled Batman was giving her said he suspected. But it was best he didn't know.

* * *

Alfred led the girl through the house in silence. He had a great deal to think on and didn't trust himself to hold conversation, not that the young lady seemed much given to it anyway. She barely made a noise or even seemed to look at anything, but he knew she was paying rapt attention. She had needed to catch him up a bit after she'd paused in shock in front of a large painting of Bruce at age ten. That had been done after Thomas and Martha Wayne's deaths and Bruce's face was so somber and old in it. It was not Alfred's favorite rendering of the child the man had been. When he had realized what she had been staring at, he had made an attempt to begin conversation, if only to ask what had surprised her so, but the words had died in his throat. He had been warned of what sort of person this girl was supposed to be, but he had not been adequately prepared for whom she would look like. Not for the first time since he had seen her climb out of the Batmobile did he wonder if he could have been adequately prepared. He continued the silence half because he would be damned if he, Alfred Pennyworth butler of Bruce Wayne and of Thomas Wayne before him, were ever caught staring rudely at a guest. And he felt sure that if he engaged with this guest just now he would stare.

No. Not a guest, but family. It was little wonder that as he entered the hallway housing the home's first young ward's room he was greeted only with more silence, little wonder that Dick was not taking this well. He took in hand the knob of the door next to Dick's room and took a moment to regret his decision to place the girl immediately next door to her new foster brother, then he swung the door open stoically.

"This will be your room, young miss," Alfred said, finally turning to face her since he'd also be damned if he were ever to ignore a lady. "Miss . . . well, I'm afraid I'm not sure what to call you. I believe your name was Raksha, but I expect you'll be wanting to use a different name now."

The girl smiled, ignoring how the man's eyes fought not to give away their confusion at seeing someone else's smile on her face. She liked how he said her name; it was so clean and crisp the way he said it. Not at all the way it deserved to be said. "No, I'm not going to keep that name," she replied. "Mr. Wayne and I thought I should use the given name I had when I was little, if you don't mind calling me 'Meredith'."

"Of course, Miss Meredith," Alfred said, directing her in with a neat gesture of his gloved hand. "I took the liberty of stocking the bathroom," he continued as she passed him going into the room, "with the products I was made aware you had on your person during your . . . six-month guest stay with the League, shall we say. I've also put two changes of clothing in the dressers, although I did not want to presume to supply more in case it shouldn't be to your taste."

Meredith sat down stiffly on the end of the bed. The entire room was as large as the one room she had once shared with eleven girls, the eight boys in the next room. It was disconcerting. Empty.

"Thank you," she said simply. "That was nice of you."

Alfred nodded. "Master Bruce has already brought up your few things from your guest stay with the League, young master Dick is just next door," he said, noting how one eyebrow of hers lifted just slightly at that, "and of course you may let me know if you require anything else. I'll just leave you to get settled. Dinner won't be for a few hours."

He waited a moment until she nodded, then he gave her a small bow and left. As he walked silently down the remaining length of the hall, he tried not to reflect too hard on how much like a younger Richard the girl had looked, alone and small and swamped by a huge room in a strange house. Somehow, he did not think either of the wards would take well to that comparison.

* * *

Only a week later on a Monday morning, Dick was sitting, waiting, at the dinner table. Dressed for school, one hand supported his chin while the other tapped impatiently on the table-top. He studiously ignored the small, neat pile of things at the seat next to him. Alfred had collected all the things Meredith would need – school supplies, a lunch, even a small locking safe to keep sensitive things hidden in her locker – and placed them there along with a backpack. All the fashion-forward girls at school used satchels, but Meredith had politely insisted on a backpack. Apparently, satchels and messenger bags gave her older-than-it-looks back too much grief. All of this would have been fine, annoying but fine, if there hadn't been her paperwork sitting next to the small stack of supplies. Everything she'd need to turn into the school and keep on her person was there, including a new ID card. Dick still couldn't believe Bruce had consented to lending her his last name. He couldn't even bring himself to say he "gave" it to her. She was borrowing it, as far as he was concerned, and there was certainly no way he'd be calling her Meredith Wayne anytime this side of the apocalypse. Both Bruce and Alfred had tried explaining why she couldn't keep her own name. They'd tried explaining why a child whom Bruce was claiming to have adopted from Russia, but who couldn't name her parents and clearly did not look Russian, would be unlikely to have her own last name from the orphanage. It hadn't helped his temper to understand that. They could have just made one up for her. Bruce had insisted the press would have had a field day with that. Of course, they'd had a field day with this too.

Dick just as studiously ignored the girl in question when she came down and retrieved her things. Dick leading the way, they silently walked out to where Alfred was waiting with the car. As if it all weren't bad enough already, four days ago when Alfred had ordered her uniforms Meredith had insisted on wearing the boy's style. The only concessions she had made were to stop using skin cosmetics and hair products to make her skin lighter and her hair straight. It turned out she had softly curling hair, but even without the make-up her skin was only a touch darker than his. She perpetually smelled of sunscreen to keep it that light, and she'd kept the contacts she wore to alter her eye color. Apparently, her eyes weren't naturally blue. That had done nothing for his temper either. In a fit of vindictiveness, he'd neglected to tell her that in a city like Gotham she could probably ditch the sunscreen and not live her days smelling of it. The result was that the girl riding to her first day of school with him could easily have been his genuine sibling, maybe even twin, and he was not looking forward to what anyone at school was likely to say about it.

Alfred pulled into the short drop-off line in front of Gotham Academy. "Miss Meredith, are you really sure you do not want me to come in with you and see you're settled?" he asked politely.

"Absolutely," Meredith replied, looking across Dick and out the window at the school. "There's supposed to be a student who'll show me around, and I'm sure . . ." she looked at Dick and frowned as he continued to ignore her, "I'm sure I can ask any of my classmates if I need help."

"Or a teacher," Alfred added. "You can always ask any member of the staff or faculty if you have any needs or questions whatsoever."

Meredith smiled and nodded. Alfred had settled into comfort with her appearance and mannerisms by now, and it was no small blessing considering that some people still had yet to. Dick opened the car door with a sigh and slid out. He'd spotted his friend Barbara, and although he left the door open for the new girl to follow him he did not stick around to wait for her. As she got out, Meredith could see Barbara Gordon's confusion as she came out to meet her best friend's new family member only to be dragged away by him. Meredith had known she wouldn't be meeting Batgirl until she'd earned her passage into the Batcave at the very least, but she had hoped to at least meet Gordon. She sighed and waved at Alfred before marching her way determinedly toward the front entry. She'd just have to handle the day one thing at a time. But the first thing she had expected to handle was not here. Naturally, her student guide was a no-show.

She waited outside the school until the entire student body had filtered through the doors, and still no one came. She was still waiting when the bell rang. She thought a moment; clearly the bell was a signal of some kind, probably meant to gather the students together for the day, but she didn't know where they were gathering or if she was meant to go anywhere before her guide came. Whatever information her guide was meant to give her, she didn't want to be caught without it, so she sat down on the front steps and kept waiting.

* * *

Dick ignored Barbara's protests as he towed her into the school and down a hallway of lockers.

"Richard Grayson, will you stop, please!" she yelled, pulling against his grip, but she wasn't trying too hard to break away. In civilian mode or not, she knew from first-hand experience that the former trapeze artist had a vice-grip when he wanted to. "I have to go meet your sister! Mrs. Planchet assigned me as her –" She cut off as Dick unexpectedly stopped and she suddenly ran into him. When she'd shaken it off and looked up at him, he looked absolutely livid, and she backed away swiftly.

"She is _not_ my sister," Dick growled.

Barbara blinked, then sighed. "Right. Sorry, I didn't mean it that way. I would have put it more tactfully if you hadn't been hauling me like that. I still have to go meet her, though."

"No," Dick said curtly, then continued quickly, cutting off Barbara's objection. "I'll ask someone else to do it."

Barbara yanked her hand back finally, frowning. "Look, whatever's got your tight-rope in a twist the principal asked me to be her student guide, so you don't get to dismiss me from duty or whatever it is you're trying to pull."

"The circus joke was unnecessary," Dick said, crossing his arms obstinately.

"Oh yeah? Well, it wasn't supposed to be an insult; I thought you'd appreciate the consonance," she shot back sarcastically. "You know. That poetry concept we're reviewing in literature today, or would be if we weren't going to be late." As if on cue, the bell rang.

Still crossed, Dick's arms stiffened. "Get to class then." With that, he turned and took off running down the hall, Barbara's yells fading behind him as he turned a corner.

He was lucky. Artemis was late today too, just now closing her locker, but he was going to have one cranky case on his hands trying to talk her into doing him a favor when she was already late for class. That wouldn't have been a problem if Babs had just cooperated.

"Artemis!" he said, sliding out of his run next to her. "Artemis Crock. Dick Grayson, nice to meet you. Again. Look, I need a favor. Do you mind?"

Artemis blinked back at him in surprise for a moment. Man, could this kid talk. "Grayson? You're that kid who snapped a photo of me my first day here." Regaining her composure, she leveled her best glare at him. "I have to get to class." She made to leave but came up short when Dick grabbed her arm. It wasn't a tight grip, but it triggered a response from her anyway and she twisted her arm away the way she'd been taught from childhood. Or at least she tried. The grip tightened as suddenly as it had appeared in the first place leaving her staring stupidly at the geeky little brat who had somehow managed to hold her.

"Yeah, I know," Dick said quickly. "I'm late for class too, but I-"

"But you won't get expelled, because you're Wayne's brat," Artemis growled. "Let go of me."

"- really need this favor," Dick continued unfazed and not letting go. "Look, there's a new girl, and her student guide can't meet her so I need you to go meet her instead." Artemis got this really angry and confused look on her face. Dick would have been amused in another circumstance; it was the same kind of face she used to constantly give Wally and still gave him on occasion. "Just do it, Artemis, ok? You'll understand why I asked you when you meet her."

"What do you think this is some kind of spy movie?" Artemis said, finally twisting her arm free. Or perhaps he'd simply let go; that grip had been like iron. "Go meet her yourself!"

"I can't!" Dick yelled in a whisper, getting desperate now. "Look, just do it, Artemis."

He turned and ran off, presumably to his first period, leaving behind a very confused and aggravated Artemis. All the same, she found herself marching down the hall on her way to the front entry to see if this person she was now supposed to meet was still there. There had been something about the way that brat talked that had her heading that way before she'd even fully realized she was doing what he'd told her to. He was getting an earful the next time she saw the little twerp.

She saw that someone was sitting on the front steps as she neared the clear glass doors, and the idiocy of someone just sitting there past the bell fueled her temper. She was surprised when the person got up and turned to face her before she had even opened the doors, and both girls were surprised when they saw each other. The wheels in Artemis' brain turned slowly as she was confronted with a curly-top version of the same kid who had just accosted her in the hallway. Right down to the uniform! Was it even per school policy for her to be wearing that? Because if it was, Artemis was so wearing the boy's uniform as soon as she could afford to replace hers, darn ridiculous short skirts.

At about that point in Artemis' thought process, the Grayson clone got over her surprise and grinned a very, very familiar grin.

"You!" Artemis exclaimed as she finally flung open the door and stepped outside. "I know you!"

The girl just kept grinning. "I should hope so. Meredith," she said, extending her hand to shake, "Just Meredith. I avoid using the last name as much as possible."

Artemis backed away from the hand warily. "No, I know your real name. Did you really think just curling your hair would disguise you? You still look just like him!"

"Actually, my hair is naturally curly," Meredith replied, cocking her head in amusement. "And like who? Grayson? I get that a lot."

"No! Like-" Artemis stopped, eyes going wide. "Grayson. You look like . . .oh my gosh."

Finally, Meredith looked something other than amused; she looked confused. "You mean you didn't . . .you didn't know." The amusement was back. "You didn't know?" At Artemis' indignant yet still shocked expression, she couldn't help it: she laughed. Artemis backed away another step as Robin's signature cackle came out of this girl's throat. "How long have you been going to school here, and you didn't know!" she managed to wheeze out.

Artemis's eyes narrowed and she stepped forward again, this time her stance clearly threatening. "Ok, so now I know why Grayson asked me to come meet you. And I'm going to say this just once since no one else seems willing to: I don't know what you're after and I don't know what makes you think you can get it, but not one of us trusts you for one minute. I know you're living with Grayson now, but when you're at school you stay away from him. And you can bet that the team will be keeping an eye on you. Secrets or no secrets, as soon as school lets out today everyone on the team will know exactly who he is and who you are, and we are not. letting. you. hurt. him. Understand?"

Meredith got over her mirth quickly and just stared with those unsettling blue eyes while Artemis stood her ground.

"Thank you," Meredith finally said, all serious now but still just as unsettling. Artemis had grown to place a great deal of trust in Robin's serious talk, and hearing it now, from her, was enough to make her blood boil and her stomach churn. "I appreciate that. I have no intention of hurting him, so it's good to know he's taken care of. But you said Grayson sent you, so . . . I take it you're not actually my student guide?"

"Your student guide isn't coming," Artemis spat. "But you can have a word of advice from me: class started so you might want to find out where yours is instead of sitting out on the steps like an idiot." Yanking the door open, Artemis marched back inside, leaving a startled ex-assassin to wonder just how and how severely American schools punished students who were late to class.

* * *

Meredith returned to her locker along with the small swarm of students after last period let out. She'd left her small safe and empty lunch-bag in there earlier, but she retrieved both and left the locker empty. In the end, she hadn't seen a real need for the locker, and she could use the safe in her room back at the manor. She was just shutting the locker door when someone grabbed it. She looked up at the tall boy now towering over her and took stock of him. Naturally, an establishment like this didn't have the kind of blundering, bullying idiots who blew rancid breath when they spoke and scratched at badly kept skin and scalp. Here they had the kind who blew breath smelling of something more expensive than Scope and wore foundation, whether male or female. She'd seen both kinds in her lifetime. She knew he wouldn't be alone, and that she was in no real danger.

"So. You're Wayne's new charity case, right?" the kid asked. She didn't know his name, but it was clear he was used to this but not good at it. He was already spouting the lamest insults she could imagine.

"Which Wayne?" Meredith asked blankly.

"There's only one, brat," the kid said, grinning.

"Actually, there are two now. But you knew that." Meredith sighed, freed the locker door from his loose grip, and closed it. The boy seemed momentarily confused, probably wondering how she'd gotten the door out of what he figured was a tight grip, but he recovered well. Experienced.

"Right, right, sorry. You know, that's very interesting, because Grayson is, well, still a Grayson. And some people are even saying you and Grayson are actual siblings, so that makes it even more odd." He leaned against the lockers in what, again she had to admit, was a well-practiced stance. It brought out his good looks and height perfectly. His friends who were there as expected were keeping her hemmed in for him, making his nonchalant lounge possible. "Are you two really related?"

Meredith performed a little lean of her own. Just slightly, she shifted her center of balance one way, cocked her head in the opposite direction, and grinned. It was a slow grin, still a Grayson grin, but this one was flirtatious. The entire effect was even better than this kid's. She'd had Talia for a master, so she'd learned from nothing short of the best how to play the attraction game. If this boy was going to go for nonchalant, she'd go for something a little more chalant. Sure enough, as she raked her eyes over him briefly, the boy blushed visibly even under his foundation.

"Be honest," Meredith said coyly. "Do we look related?"

The boy frowned and squirmed just slightly. "Well, yes. Frankly . . . you do. And my friends and I would like to know why," he said, his embarrassment beginning to make him more angry than cocky.

Meredith folded her arms and quirked a teasing brow. "Judging by your face, if you think I look like Grayson, you must find him very attractive."

She'd figured he could do better at blushing than he was. She had been right, but he still recovered quickly. Perhaps she'd been wrong to assume he was bad at this. He stood up straight and faced her.

"Funny," he said. "But that brings me to something else I'm curious about. See, a lot of people have been trying for years to figure out what on earth Bruce Wayne could see in a wimpy geek like Grayson, and there have been a few theories. A crowd favorite for a while has been that Wayne wanted him for . . . well, his own personal entertainment, we could say. Problem with that theory is Wayne is an obvious playboy with a massive appetite for bimbos, so." He bent at the waist, leaning toward her in dead-pan seriousness. "Maybe the reason you're here is because Wayne finally got so bent out of shape over Grayson that he decided he needed a female model. This hair, does he prefer curls on his girls?" He reached out to finger one of the tighter ringlets that always appeared next to her temples. She let him.

"Why so curious?" Meredith dead-panned back, maintaining her flirt but now honing it down to a vicious edge. She was angry. It was evident to her now that he'd gotten this good by honing his skills on Grayson over the years, and she was done toying. "Jealous? Don't be. If he were having me, you'd know." She reached up and tugged her curl from his fingers, brushing his hand as she did and watching his face try and fail to blush even more than it already was. "Because he wouldn't still have a thing for those bimbos."

She turned and slipped past the three boys who had been standing behind her. One and all were too stunned to stop or even follow her. As planned. Walking toward the front entrance, she tried to reign in her temper. Being in the car with a brooding Grayson again was going to require her full attention. He was already in the car, slid to the far side of the back seat, when she climbed in.

"You get lost?" Dick asked.

"No," Meredith said, setting her full backpack in the floorboard. "Why?"

"Took you a while to find your way out to the car," Dick said.

"I wasn't lost," Meredith repeated. "I was talking to some of the students. Sorry if I was late, Alfred."

"Not at all, young miss," Alfred said as he pulled out of the pick-up line. "I'm glad you took a moment to socialize. Normally, master Dick would as well."

"That eager to get home? It was your first day back in months," Meredith said, turning back to Dick.

"I'm tired," Dick said, frowning sourly. "First days back are always exhausting, and I haven't been getting much sleep."

"Really, and why is that, master Dick?" Alfred asked with concern which immediately turned to regret for having asked.

"Maybe because someone keeps sneaking out of her room at night and waking me up." Dick turned to glare at Meredith. "Really. You're supposed to be an assassin. You can't move any quieter when you spend the hours between two and four a.m. roaming the house?"

"I was an assassin," Meredith corrected. "And I wasn't trying to keep you up. I asked Alfred for those kind of house-shoes specifically so they would make noise."

"But you say you're not trying to keep anyone up," Dick huffed.

"No," Meredith said sharply. After a week, this temper of Grayson's was starting to get very old and increasingly difficult to put up with. "The other kids and I had an agreement when we lived together to always wear noisy clothes when we weren't training. In theory, it meant we weren't trying to sneak up on each other." She gave Dick a glare of her own. "Would you prefer I roam the house between the hours of two and four a.m. without making a sound?"

"I would prefer you didn't roam the house in the middle of the night at all," Dick snarled. "If you're trying to get us to trust you, you're failing disastrously."

"Maybe that's more because you're failing disastrously at trying to trust me," Meredith shot back. "You set your teammate on me today."

"Oh, so you officially met Artemis. How'd you like her?" Dick said.

"Did you think I'd be threatened?" Meredith asked, ignoring his sarcastic question. "All you're doing is helping ruin any chance I have of earning my way onto that team and being accepted on it, so I have to assume you're trying to shove me out. But here's the problem. I played that game with Talia al Ghul and lost, and I learned my lesson then. I don't intend to lose out this time. I'm not here to hurt you and I'm not going to, but I'd appreciate it if you'd stop trying to hurt me."

"My team works just fine without you on it," Dick said, sitting up defensively.

"Your team? Last I checked it was run by the League and led by the Atlantean," Meredith said.

"I meant-" Dick cut off growling. "It's my team! And as far as I'm concerned you're not welcome on it!"

"Master Dick!" Alfred finally cut in as they made the turn out of town on their way to the manor. There was a moment of silence as both wards sat staring at each other.

"I'm not welcome on it as far as Artemis is concerned, either," Meredith finally said. "Congratulations. You set her on me like a dog, and she barked for you on command. More to the point, you taught me an important lesson I'll be sure to keep in mind: the League, this team, Batman and his partners – you're not so different from the League of Shadows. Everyone has a place. And everyone is a pawn. I wonder if Artemis has learned that lesson yet. Maybe I should teach her. I get the feeling if she and the rest of your team got a good, long look at how capable you are at using people you might not be so welcome on that team either. Keep that in mind." She paused briefly as they pulled into the manor's long driveway. "And stay whelmed, I'll be sure not to wear my noisy shoes in the house from now on." She picked up her backpack and looked up at Alfred in the rearview mirror before she opened the car door and climbed out, leaving a speechless Dick behind. Only Alfred saw how sad her eyes were.

"Master Dick, that was the definition of taking things too far," Alfred said when she had closed the door behind her.

"I took things too far!" Dick said, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "Then what do you call what she did?"

Alfred got out of the car and opened the door for Dick. "At the risk of sounding juvenile, young sir," he said, "you started it."

* * *

Bruce was in his office when the car drove up with his butler and two wards. His home being what it was, he couldn't hear them drive up at such a distance, but he had his computer monitor running the front door camera feeds right now. He wasn't the type to fret all day about first days at school, but he certainly wasn't beyond keeping an eye out to make sure both parties had survived the day. From the looks of things, neither of them really had. He sighed as he put his papers away and cleaned off his desk. Meredith had been surprisingly patient with Dick's temper since she arrived, even tender it seemed at times, but the boy had gotten worse, not better, with time and everyone's patience was wearing thin. He had suspected things might come to a head today. He'd have to talk to Alfred to see if he knew anything. He was surprised to hear footsteps, Dick's, coming determinedly down the hall just as he made to stand up from his desk chair. The boy burst in, then just stood there awkwardly a moment before flopping into the chair on the other side of the desk.

"I have completely had it with this day," Dick said.

Bruce said nothing, half because he didn't know what to say these days that wouldn't make the boy explode in fits of rage and half because he was observing. As had become the norm, Dick's body language said he needed someone to talk to and at the same time communicated that Bruce was still firmly in the camp of people he was angry with. Alfred walked in blank-faced and silent, and that too spoke volumes. Bruce opened one of his drawers again and pulled out a file.

"Well, the sooner we get started on the last chores of the day, then, the sooner the day can end," Bruce said. "I've looked through the file Jim gave us last night on the potential arson case in Crime Alley." He handed the file across the desk, and Dick snatched it up like it was a lifeline. Bruce frowned. It was certainly not a healthy frame of mind that made you feel like fighting crime was the most safe and normal part of your day. He should know. Dick quickly scanned the pages and hit upon the oddity after just a few minutes.

"So," Dick said, setting the file back on the desk, "the police suspect arson in the case of a salon fire not because the fire was started like it wasn't an accident but because the three women who died had hair that oddly didn't burn."

"Basically," Bruce said. "What do you make of it?"

"Well," Dick said, sprawling back into his chair. Bruce noted that with recent growth spurts he could now almost fill the house's chairs when he did that. "I don't see why that should be entirely odd. The bodies didn't burn either. Autopsy said they suffered burns but that the burns didn't kill them; the smoke did."

"Right," Bruce agreed. "But even though the fire didn't burn hot as fires go, the hair would still warp and be damaged in the heat. It didn't and it wasn't."

"So you're saying," Alfred said, oddly, in a stage voice meant to carry, "that arson is supposed, despite the fact that the fire seems to have begun accidentally and doesn't seem to have burned very hot, because the women who suffocated in the smoke had undamaged hair? Sounds like a case of good hair care, not sabotage."

Bruce narrowed his eyes slightly at the butler and glanced toward the door. Alfred was clearly pitching his voice so that someone could hear. The girl must be outside the room, and now that he knew to listen for it he heard her almost silently walk away.

"Right," Bruce said, looking back at Dick. "That's the gist of it."

"What are you thinking then?" Dick asked. "I don't get it, but I don't see how it amounts to arson either."

"Dick, you know how we approach these things," Bruce said, frowning disapprovingly. "If it can't be immediately explained, it's worth investigating. Don't get sloppy."

Dick scowled and sank farther into the chair. "So what are you thinking then?"

"I'm not sure yet," Bruce said, getting up. "Let's think on it, and maybe we'll pay the salon a visit tonight. For now," he smiled at the sulking boy, "how about we go get some exercise in before dinner?" It was the right thing to say for once. Dick nodded and hopped up out of the chair, running off to get changed. The Batmobile also needed work again if there were going to be four in it, but that could wait, especially since there was at this point no guarantee there would be four in it. Bruce gave Alfred a pointed look as he walked out the door.

"You know I'm not trusting sensitive information to the girl yet, Alfred," Bruce said.

"Of course," Alfred said innocently. "I do know you are not."

Bruce frowned. "Right. And you're not either. I don't trust her yet," he said turning into the hallway and going to get changed himself. As he walked away, he heard Alfred call after him, "Yes, that does seem to be a recurring theme in this house, sir."

When Bruce and Dick had changed and were nearing the house's gym, Bruce saw what had become a familiar sight over the last week. Meredith slipped around the corner of the hallway, just barely noticeable if you were looking for her. She regularly used the gym herself, but she always slipped away in that fashion as soon as Dick came to use it and if Dick noticed he said nothing. Bruce suspected he didn't actually notice the majority of the time. He'd tried coming down without Dick once to see what the girl would do; she had still left but that time had not gone to the effort of slipping away unnoticed. She was trying to ease the tension in the house as best she could, and Bruce had to admit he was thankful for that. He was also thankful for the way she seemed to slip unobtrusively in at mealtimes to take her seat such that even though she sat across from Dick the boy was left with room to ignore her. She did that again tonight, so it was nearly halfway through the meal before the silence was broken.

"You know," Meredith said, casually picking at her food, "you should check what kind of hair products they used at that salon."

Bruce silently sighed and looked up at her just as Dick beat him to the punch on responding.

"And how do you know about that?" Dick asked accusingly. "Spying on us now?"

"Actually," Bruce cut in before things could get uglier, "Alfred told her." It was basically the truth. "Why should we check that?" he asked, turning back to Meredith.

"Because," she said, "there are products for people who use very hot hair-dryers, flat-irons, or curling irons which are specifically made to protect hair from high heat. Pantene, for example, advertises that their heat-protection shampoos can protect hair from up to 450 degrees of direct heat. If the fire didn't burn hot and the bodies were protected in any way from close contact with the fire, maybe it was just the product the salon used that was responsible."

Bruce and Dick stared at her, then looked at each other, then looked back at her.

"What?" Meredith asked, leaning back in her chair self-consciously. "I know my way around hair products and straighteners." She fingered a curl for a moment, then dropped her hand as though bitten when it reminded her of what the boy at school had said. "How do you think I got my hair to go straight?"

"Well, it's certainly more likely than anything I was thinking of," Bruce said. "I'll admit to not knowing my way around straighteners."

"So," Meredith probed, "you'll look into it?"

Bruce paused. "I'll ask the police," he said flatly.

"If what they tell you still doesn't make any sense," Meredith continued, "you can ask me again. I could help."

"I didn't ask you the first time," Bruce said, turning his attention back to his plate, "and it's just something the police asked us to look into. We can handle it."

"I'm not saying you can't handle it," Meredith said, leaning forward in her chair again, "I'm just saying I can help. It's what I came here to do in the first place. The League of Shadows could be moving already and anything at all could be a tip-off to that, but I can't help pick anything out because no one is keeping me informed. I know I haven't earned my way into the cape yet, but I could at least filter through information."

"He said no," Dick barked.

"Dick," Bruce cut in warningly, then he turned back to Meredith. "No." Dick sat back in his chair, nodding with satisfaction.

Meredith said nothing. She had been trying very hard not to ever let herself become unreasonably emotional over the past week, and not really because she wanted to prove herself trustworthy. It had not been in her upbringing to be trustworthy. Instead, she wanted to prove herself useful and palatable, and the problem with becoming unreasonably emotional was that as soon as she lost control she reverted to her training. That is, she was far more Richard Grayson than she was Meredith Wayne or even Raksha when she was emotional, and there was no surer way to earn disapproval in this home than to be what she had been trained to be. At times like this, though, she couldn't seem to help it. She was angry, and she knew she would spend the rest of the evening in useless regret over this.

"Yep, pretty much just like the Shadows," she said, turning to Dick and sprawling back in her chair in just the same way he tended to do. "No wonder he and Talia get along so well. I mean," she grinned, " _got_ along so well."

Dick fumed, just as she'd known he would, but Bruce was the first to say something for once.

"Stop that," Bruce said. "You should know by now that you get nowhere in my estimations by pulling that trick."

"Has it never occurred to either of you," Meredith replied, crossing her arms and sinking down in her chair, "that maybe I don't do this on purpose?"

"No," Dick shot back. "It really hasn't. You do it to try to manipulate us, and it really is not working."

Meredith stood up abruptly and slammed her palms down on either side of her plate. The dining room resounded with the thud the solid wooden table made.

"You want to take this to the gym?" she challenged. "Get up. Right now. You were pretty eager to fight me in the Watchtower, but you have no idea who you're challenging. Follow me to the gym," she turned to Bruce, blue eyes burning, "and I'll show you what I've been hiding from you, Grayson."

As she left the table, Alfred stepped in to try to diffuse the tension, but Dick was already following her and Bruce wasn't far behind. Swallowing what he had been about to say, the butler muttered a simple, "Oh dear," to himself as he too followed.

When the three reached the gym, they found the girl perched precariously on top of the bar supporting the rings.

"So?" Dick called up to her, stepping into the room and unzipping the jacket he'd been wearing to keep warm after his work-out earlier. "Do you need to warm up before we go?" he asked, his tone making it clear he was not asking out of genuine consideration.

Meredith didn't answer. Turning her head to face forward, she tilted forward slightly and let herself fall. She tucked her body in tight, took hold of the bar, and swung on it as though it were half of a set of uneven bars. She flipped on it three times and on the final upswing placed her feet back atop the bar and launched herself upward. As they followed her leap, the three-person audience noticed what they hadn't before: the trapeze set was hanging from the ceiling. Years ago, when Dick had first come to the manor, Bruce had had the set waiting for him, but it became quickly clear that Dick didn't take well to seeing it hanging there. Bruce and Alfred had put the set away, and since then it had only rarely ever been brought out again, usually when Dick had particularly sleepless nights and always on the anniversary of his family's murders.

It seemed Meredith had found it, and now she was flipping, twisting, and soaring above them. The ceiling wasn't very high, so the safest way to use the trapeze set was to take down all the other equipment. She had left it up, though, and was avoiding it expertly all the same. As Dick's eyes followed her back and forth, Alfred and Bruce both took notice that he was becoming, if anything, more and more furious. After a few minutes of solo tricks, Meredith started confining herself to just one of the two swinging bars. As she performed various tightly twisting flips in order to keep swinging ever higher on just the one bar, the other bar slowly became still again. When it was completely at rest and Meredith was nearly nose-to-ceiling high on the other bar, she let go and fell.

Dick's eyes grew wide as he realized what she was about to do, and he subconsciously held his breath as he counted. One flip, two flips . . . he knew by the third flip that she was going to miss the fourth, and when she used the rings' support bar to save herself from her fall he found himself halfway across the room without having known he'd moved.

Meredith dropped safely down to the ground, and the two watched each other. Dick was shaking. So was she. Bruce finally stalked forward, face grim and stern.

"I don't know what you were trying to prove," Bruce growled, "but that was reckless. You could have been hurt."

"I was once," Meredith replied, still looking straight at Dick as though it didn't matter if anyone else in the room heard her. "Talia thought removing the net while I practiced would motivate me. But that's not the point. The point is," she looked up at the trapeze set where one of the bars was still swinging smoothly with its momentum, "I'm not you, Grayson. I never have been and never will be. I've been trying that trick for years, and I can't do the fourth flip. They tell me it's because I'm too stiff," she said, rolling her shoulders, "but there's nothing wrong with me physically or with my skill." She smiled. "The truth is I'm afraid of heights. We were all trained to be, but I'm naturally afraid of them. Put me ten feet off the ground and I'm shaking. I'll probably never do a quadruple flip. Whatever you think about me or about why I act the way I do, I think you're missing the point. I'm not you."

For once, Dick seemed to be listening. He studied her, processing both what she'd said and the fear he had experienced when she'd fallen. When he'd moved subconsciously, he had been going to catch her. Somehow this both confused and relieved him. When he was sure he could without sounding afraid, he spoke.

"Why then?" he asked. "Why do you keep trying if you know you can't be me?"

"I'm not," Meredith said, shaking her head, "That's what I keep trying to tell you. I'm not trying to do this. Actually, I'm trying very hard not to, but when you've lived and breathed nothing but Robin for six years that's difficult. It's who I am. And I'm sorry, but even if I spend every day trying I'm never going to find a me in here that doesn't involve you. I can't change my past. I could maybe change myself with a few years of hard work, but, Grayson . . ." She paused, stepping toward him. "What if I don't want to?"

Meredith's approach broke Dick out of his lingering haze of fear and anger induced adrenaline, and he dropped his jacket to the floor.

"Fine," Dick said. "You're not me. But that's only one concern out of a lot. You want us," he gestured toward Bruce behind him on his right, "to trust you to help us, but we still know nothing about what you're capable of."

Meredith grimaced, rubbing a hand over the back of her neck to unstick the nape curls caught in her light sweat. "Speak for yourself," she replied, following his gesture with her eyes. "I'm sure Mr. Wayne has a few ideas."

"You know what I mean," Dick said. "Spar with me. You wouldn't before. I'll admit it wasn't really the time or place, but now is a good time and a good place. I've got to say all this not knowing," he turned his head just slightly toward Bruce – that was for him too, him and all his paranoid secrets –, "is not whelming."

"Right," Meredith said thoughtfully. "Because you want to know if I'm a real threat to you."

"You're a decent acrobat," Dick conceded, "but what kind of fighter are you?"

"I'll ignore the "decent acrobat" jab. What kind do you think?" Meredith asked, smirking.

Dick sighed. "Right. Of course you would fight like me. But the real question, like you said, is could you take me? Given the chance, if you wanted to."

"I'm guessing you're guessing I want to," Meredith said.

Dick said nothing.

"You could just take my word for it," Meredith said.

"Which is?" Dick asked.

"I can," Meredith said humorlessly. "I could. If I wanted to. No chance needed; I make my own chances."

"So prove it," Dick said shrugging.

"Not with you," Meredith said. "The time and place weren't the problem. Look, I'll show you whatever you want to see as long as you can talk Mr. Wayne into sparring with me to do it. I'll even take Alfred; I won't hurt him, scout's honor. But I'm not sparring with you."

"See," Dick said, "here's the thing. I'm not insisting because I'm scared of you. I'm insisting because Bruce isn't the only one here with brains, and it's weird that you insist so strongly on not sparring with me. Not even fighting, just sparring. You'd think you'd jump at the chance to prove you can hold back, be a vigilante instead of an assassin, but you don't. So the natural conclusion for anyone with half a brain is that you're the one who's scared." He closed the remaining distance between the two of them, standing toe to toe with her, and watched as although she never moved she seemed to shrink in on herself. "Scared that you can't actually hold back. That you'll do what you were trained to do whether you want to or not. And you can understand why I, and Bruce who I'm sure is thinking the same thing, wouldn't want someone on the streets of Gotham who can't even trust herself to hold back, playing at saving people when all she really wants is to bust in the head of the kid next to her."

Meredith seemed to want to say something, perhaps a few things, but couldn't decide what or which thing to say. She spent a few moments in silence, jaw working, biting her lip.

"Back up," Meredith said, finally, backing up a step herself even as she said it.

Dick frowned and crossed his arms but backed up a small step.

"Ok, I see your point. And I'm not saying you're wrong," Meredith said. "But it doesn't change anything. This day has been less than asterous already, and I'm not finishing it by pushing myself to be gentle with you. Give me someone I can be hard on or get out of my face." By the time she was done talking, she was trembling.

Bruce stepped forward and placed a steadying hand on Dick's shoulder. "Alright, fine. Let's just get this done and move on," he said, taking off his sweatshirt and gently pulling back on Dick's shoulder. Dick resisted a moment, but then stepped back.

And just like that Meredith stopped trembling. Dick backed up all the way to Alfred and the two watched as Meredith, who after school had changed into a green hoodie and grey leggings, calmly faced down the bare-chested man in front of her. It was hard to tell what had sparked the change in her if you didn't look at her eyes, but if you did it was obvious: she was lost in thought. Dick sank to a seat on the floor and watched the wheels in her head turn. Then suddenly she moved, and, just when Dick had thought he couldn't be surprised by her mimicry anymore, he was.

He had been deliberately understating when he called her a "decent" acrobat, and she was proving it now. She darted threateningly into Bruce's personal space, but when he struck out she was gone again, flipping over his extended arm so cleanly and quickly that she very nearly made the full flip before he'd retracted his arm. But just like before, it only took a few moments for Dick to realize that while the copy was exceptional it wasn't perfect. There was something off about her performance . . . and it wasn't how she was goading Bruce into striking only to avoid and not strike back. Dick did that too, waiting out his opponent until he could get a good shot in. Especially when facing a bigger, stronger opponent, like Bruce, someone with a build like his and Meredith's couldn't afford to get hit too hard and would do little damage throwing their own strikes just anywhere. No, there was something else off, and he just couldn't put his finger on it.

Bruce seemed to have noticed too, and now he was doing his own goading, trying to get her to show what she was up to. He didn't dart into her personal space – he shoved his way into it. Repeatedly, always moving in and never moving back. Any space between them was space Meredith put there, still trying to keep distance even as it grew harder and harder to do so. Dick noted how much she was sweating, saw the desperation in her eyes. He had to say, he would have been impressed, actually, that she was hanging in there so well if she hadn't talked so big or specifically asked to spar with Bruce. He had had a week to dwell on what little he knew about her, and he had to say this was not what he expected from the girl who managed to give both Green Arrow and Canary the run around. Bruce got ever closer, and Meredith got ever more desperate, until the inevitable hit landed. Meredith flipped backward over Bruce's extended leg as he kicked out at her, and he was too far into her space for her to dodge fast enough. Bruce took hold of her wrists, pulled her in an arc over his head, and slammed her down.

Dick blinked in surprise when she hit the floor sprawling and choked as the air left her lungs, eyes wide with fear. For one thing, he again had expected more from her. For another, he must have missed exactly how hard she had been pushing Bruce if he had given up on control enough to actually hurt her like that, but it didn't seem like Meredith was done. She rolled quickly over and got back to her feet, steady but breathing awkwardly. She locked eyes with Bruce, even though those eyes were still afraid, and launched herself again. Rolling forward, she came up in a crouch on her hands and rocketed upward, twisting as she did, so that she could still keep her eyes locked on Bruce's eyes. Bruce knew where her feet would be and not just because he'd seen Dick pull this move hundreds of times, so he kept his eyes on hers too as he dodged just the hairs-breadth he needed to. He saw her wince on the upward launch; she was probably badly bruised from when he threw her on the –

Bruce lost his train of thought and his lock on Meredith's position as his vision swam. Her feet had landed square in his chin just as intended. How? Hadn't he dodged? Oh . . . he'd mistaken her fall. He shook his head and let his senses guide him back to her, turning to face her again.

"Ok," Bruce said. "So you were faking being injured. And scared. I underestimated you."

Meredith stepped immediately back into his space and was back to her goad and flee routine.

"Not really," she said, speaking between landings. "You overestimated yourself. You may understand I'm not Robin. But your subconscious still doesn't."

After that, it seemed to Dick, the fight became bland. Frankly, neither side was getting anywhere. In fact, it almost seemed like neither opponent was trying. Bruce, he knew, was giving her the space to perform. He knew how Bruce fought, and he could have been back all over Meredith in no time but he was waiting her out, seeing what else she had up her sleeve. But Meredith wasn't being very aggressive either. Maybe she was just taking Bruce up on his offer of time to show off what she could do, so Dick paid attention.

Her mechanics were efficient, graceful, powerful, very well practiced, and so much like his he felt like a dancer placed in a room lined with mirrors for the first time. He was learning a few things about his own style that he'd have to think on. The room rang with the steady, musical rhythm of their movements, with the smack of blocked hits and feet against hard floor and soft mat, with the brush of clothing as they dodged narrowly, with the inhale and exhale of labored breathing. Well, Meredith's was labored anyway. Bruce was exerting himself by this point, something Dick had to give Meredith credit for, but he was hardly working hard. One of the downsides to Robin's fighting style: it required much more movement than his opponents' usually did.

Then something started to shift. At first, it seemed as though nothing at all had changed, but Meredith was landing hits. She made Bruce stumble with a hooked foot behind his leg and backhanded the back of his head. A few moments later, she hooked and twisted his arm, not enough to damage it but enough to hurt and slow it down. That was fairly impressive. He was more muscular than her, which meant that she'd had to pull that off quickly before he could tense his arm to protect it. And again after just a few more moments, when he punched at her, she kicked out at his elbow, nimbly dancing aside and leaving his arm stunned by a direct hit to his "funny bone". And all the while, something grated on Dick. Bruce's hits looked like they should be landing, but they weren't. Meredith's looked like they shouldn't be, but they were. And it was throwing the rhythm of the entire fight off, making it harder for Dick to follow.

Just as suddenly, though, Bruce seemed to figure it out. He reached out and grabbed her hoodie, making contact with her for the first time in several exchanges, and he aimed a punch at her liver, again a surprise to Dick. Just when he thought Bruce was taking it easy on her, he struck out like he was serious. A hit there would have ended it for his much smaller opponent who had been wisely avoiding direct hits ever since her feinted injury, but she surprised Bruce by dropping completely out of her hoodie, taking hold of it, and using it to swing up and over his arm. As she passed over his shoulder, she reached out, aiming to tap him with a knife-hand against the artery running through his neck up to his brain. Bruce saw that coming and backed away. Dick held his breath in genuine amazement for the first time this whole fight, as the girl twisted and tucked in the air and landed her hit anyway. With her heel, letting her leg give her the long reach her arm couldn't.

For the second time, Bruce backed away with his vision spotty and swimming. Had she hit him harder, he could have passed out, but she had accurately judged the thickness of his neck and applied just enough force to stun. He'd seen enough.

Bruce held up his hand. "Stop. We're done."

Meredith didn't stop though. She was coming in hot on the same side she'd just hit when at the last minute she seemed to finally process what he'd said and put on the breaks, spinning tightly on the spot several times to wind out her momentum. Dick grinned without thinking. It was one of the ways Wally managed to come to an abrupt stop when he needed to, which gave him for the first time a good idea of how fast Meredith had been moving. Not speedster fast, obviously, but fast. It was often hard to tell when the opponent was Bruce who could move fairly quickly himself and make his opponents look less skilled than they actually were at first glance.

"You gave me more leeway than I expected," Meredith said bluntly.

"You made better use of it than I should have let you," Bruce replied in the same tone.

Meredith stared up at him, still right where she stopped, then realized where she was and back-flipped away, coming up grinning.

"Don't assume too much," she said. "A real fight would have gone differently on both sides."

"You were holding back?" Dick asked, standing up.

Meredith turned toward him, now just looking flushed and elated. She laughed. It was still his cackle, and this time Dick could almost see what she meant. This time she was laughing because she couldn't help it, because she was high on adrenaline and the laugh was just bubbling out of her, yet it was still his laugh.

"No," Meredith said. "But I was showing off. A real fight would be different."

Humorously, both Meredith and Dick seemed to realize at the same moment that Meredith hadn't been wearing a shirt under her hoodie. Dick blushed and looked determinedly up at her face, which he was surprised to see went from amused at her predicament straight to guilty and ashamed, not embarrassed. He shortly realized why: instead of a bra she was wearing a long strip of cloth wrapped around her to flatten her chest. Still trying to look like him. Alfred cleared his throat and took Meredith her hoodie which she immediately slipped into. No one had noticed him pick it up as the fight went on

"That's an interesting gimmick," Bruce said, filling the awkward silence.

"Gimmick?" Meredith asked. "I wouldn't have called it that."

"Well, it's what we call it in a city full of themed nuts," he said smiling. "I didn't mean it was anything short of impressive. It's not flashy, but it takes skill to pull off."

"If I may say so since no one else is likely to admit it, miss Meredith, just the sort of thing most appreciated in this family of crime quashers," Alfred said with a warm smile. "Well done."

Meredith didn't seem to know what to do with praise. Instead she explained. "Extensive music education," she said. "And a master who never believed in letting me do something I couldn't apply to my occupation."

"The rhythm," Dick said, finally understanding. "The missed hits weren't throwing off the rhythm of the fight; you were, and that's why he was missing." He grinned. "And nice last hit, by the way. I've rarely seen that kind of improv since my circus days. My father used to say –" he stopped, swallowed. "Well, I'm still not sure I couldn't handle you."

Meredith took his diversion in stride, looking up at Bruce as she answered. "You couldn't. Not yet anyway, but you're not alone either. And I wouldn't claim I could take Batman." She turned abruptly, slipped past both Alfred and Dick, and was out the door and gone before anyone could say anything else.

Bruce hummed thoughtfully to himself and picked up his own jacket. "You couldn't take her," Bruce said, zipping his jacket. "I mean it, so you can stop frowning at me like that. She's too skilled. You noticed the rhythm, but you weren't in the fight. You didn't feel what it was like to be sucked into that rhythm. Plenty of people disrupt rhythm in a fight. I do it. You do it. We even create rhythms just to disrupt them. We call it leading an opponent into a false sense of security. But we do it with our movements and with acting. She did it with her movements, with the sound she made when she stepped on the floor, or touched me, or when I touched her, and even with the sound her clothes made as she moved. She's good." He paused and thought a moment. "Dick, what did your father used to say?"

Dick sighed. "He used to say . . . that being able to turn in the air was about knowing your destination. Not just where you wanted or even needed to land, but where you would land. No hit or miss, just hit or fall; and falling is not an option. Being able to turn in midair like that, it's something you can only do when you're committed to something completely. It was the first thing he taught me."

Bruce nodded. "Good," he said, slinging his jacket over his shoulder and putting a firm hand on Dick's shoulder. "Then you understand one of the reasons she's this good. I'm not saying you aren't committed to what you do. But she's been committed for a long time and under very different circumstances." He paused while Dick nodded to show he understood – she'd been trained for a very different career than he was being trained for. "She couldn't have done that if she had been willing to strike somewhere else. She had a target, and she was determined to hit it."

Looking up at Bruce's dead-serious eyes, the implication was not lost on Dick. Sure, Meredith had done little so far to do more than frustrate and anger Dick beyond reason, but they weren't done watching her yet. They happened to know she had been given a target. The question was: was she still determined to hit it?

* * *

Meredith had retreated to her room where she quickly showered and changed clothes.

Settling onto the end of her bed, she turned on the massive television set on the far wall. For the past week as she played prisoner in this house, it had been her only way to gather information on what was happening in the city right now. The TV was already set to a news channel, and she focused on breathing and relaxing, meditating, as the tall, balding newsperson droned along with false energy.

Just next door, Dick stepped quietly into his room. Bruce had decided Dick was too emotionally worked up to go on patrol tonight, so Dick had seen him off then crept up to his room, thankful that he hadn't run into Meredith on the way. He sat down on his bed, lost in thought, and was startled when the TV in the room next door switched on. He shook his head at himself and looked for something to occupy his time. He'd been keeping up with his homework over his months away from school and had nothing to catch up on, nothing to take his thoughts away from his next-door neighbor who from the muffled sounds he was hearing had turned on the evening news. He was almost amused. True enough, she wasn't him. Having to pay attention to so much news was one of the things he liked least about his job. He loved hacking into places for intel, but just checking up on news channels and papers was tedious and boring. He picked up his phone and checked his texts, grimacing at what he found.

"Got ur number from B Gordon. U have some explaining to do."

The number wasn't recognized, but it was pretty clear who had sent it. He threw his phone on his pillow and flopped down on the bed, now with yet another thing on his mind he didn't want to think about. Lying still and quiet, he realized if he listened closely enough he could hear Meredith's TV through the wall, so he relaxed into his comforter and distracted himself with the distant, muffled noise.

"This is Dane Crow, Gotham Evening News. In the downtown area, there have been several deaths this past week as passengers of the city's main line of public transportation have been stricken with an odd illness, quickly paralyzing and killing its victims. Authorities say they have not yet identified the cause of this illness but they know it's not contagious. All of these deaths have occurred among passengers on this line and within stations along the line, particularly near Union Station and the old Wayne Tower, so several stations have been completely shut down, making the commute in Gotham City that much worse. Authorities are asking that everyone please remain calm and worry less about contracting this illness and more about leaving the house early enough to get to work in the mornings. And with that I'll hand it to you, Kathy, for our Monday evening traffic check."

Eventually, Dane Crow managed to put Dick to sleep. Hours later, he didn't hear when Meredith crept down the hallway with silent, bare feet.

* * *

 **Author's Notes**

 **1\. I don't own Scope, which was mentioned briefly in this chapter.**

 **2\. I also don't own Pantene.**

 **3\. I feel like I've got a decent start on this fic now, so I'd love to hear some feedback from you guys. Anything at all is appreciated!**

 **4\. I'm going to recommend a story to you guys, because a friend is writing it and it's good. You should go check out "Pulling Strings" by allGreeekToMe.**


	5. Chapter 5 - Failing

_Five years ago._

 _It was 5:30 on a summer morning, and in the great fortress it seemed all the world was a contradiction. Wherever there were shadows, there was a chill, so the air inside was crisp; but the sun warmed the outside air wherever it touched it. Barely anyone was awake, certainly none of the children, so all was dark inside; but the mountains burned with light. And today a little boy was about to be awakened by a friend, instead of his master, because unlike most days which demanded success, today was a day for hopeless failure. Raksha knew she had only moments to speak to the boy and that she risked much to do so, but she had been the first to face failure this morning and she knew she could not let him face it completely alone._

 _Creeping silently into the boys' room and past the rows of futons on the floor, she touched a boy sleeping on the back row lightly on the arm. Despite only being ten years old, he was well trained; he woke immediately and silently. Bright blue eyes stared up at her in confusion from a pale face topped with messy black hair, all his features natural._

 _Raksha nodded to the boy and touched her left ear, then turned and crept out again. She passed the girls' room next-door and kept going, slipping into the storage room where they kept the futons during the day. There, she pulled a small earpiece from her sleeping gi and fixed it on her left ear. She knew the boy would have taken her signal and put his in as well. He wouldn't be able to respond, but he'd be listening. She pressed the device and spoke quietly into it._

" _Lucas. They're waking us one at a time this morning. They're taking each of us to something we must see alone. A servant will come to wake you. I cannot tell you what they will do, but I can give you advice. Take my words, please, and do as I say. Do not speak or make a noise when it happens. You must be calm, like they have taught you. Sink into the void and travel far into your mind. You must not let yourself be vulnerable. There is time later for that. Most importantly, do nothing. You must listen to me. There is nothing you can do; you must believe this, know it. You must accept it. Do nothing, and it will be easier. I know; I have been through this before, more than once, and again today – I was the first they woke, and you are next. Don't worry, I'm fine, and you will be too if you do as I say. I will find you later."_

 _Raksha did not see Lucas again for many hours that day. No one did. Eventually, she began to search for him; everyone else was busy with putting the rest of the children through this exercise. As she searched near walls and windows on the side of the fortress where the exercise was taking place, she pretended not to hear the noise of a helicopter, refused to imagine the groups of their masters being pushed out into a free-fall. In time, she found the boy hidden away in a dark basement room, crying. She sat beside him and said nothing. She had promised him there would be time for vulnerability later, and this may as well have been the time. After a while, he began to talk quietly between sobs._

" _Why would they do that? They did good work . . . they even said so just a few weeks ago . . . I've been doing well . . . Why would they do that? Why would they let them do that to them? They were so strong . . . they could have stopped them . . . but they just let them. They just let them push them, and . . . they just fell. There was nothing I . . . I tried. I tried, but they just fell."_

 _Raksha gritted her teeth and reached out to tuck his head gently into her flat, bound chest. He hadn't listened to her. He had tried to save them. Of course he had tried._

 **Failing**

The next morning broke brightly, which was odd for Gotham, and chilly, which was not. As Dick was at the table waiting for the second day of school torment, he actually made an effort to be civil. It turned out this only meant that he was actually watching for the resident copycat when she came downstairs having clearly given up on the concessions she'd made yesterday in her appearance. She was back to clone-mode. He tried not to get angry, he really did. He failed miserably. And it didn't help that he knew he was wasting an opportunity to enjoy a rare beautiful morning.

Meredith, for her part, remained outwardly impassive as she observed the immediate change in his decent, maybe even good, attitude. She instantly regretted her choice to resume her previous habits, but only for a moment. She didn't feel like making a habit of changing her mind like Grayson changed his moods.

"I thought we had just established you aren't me," Dick said, grinding his teeth at the sight of her resumed cosmetics and again straightened hair. She had even gelled it back just like he did his in civ mode, something she'd never done before.

"Yep," Meredith said, walking past him to the waiting car. The chilly air and bright sunshine reminded her of her home of six years and made her response colder than she had meant it to be. "Just keep that in mind. I'm more comfortable like this, and after some thought I've decided that at least one person in this house ought to be comfortable with me."

"I take exception to that, miss Meredith," Alfred said as he opened the backseat door for her.

"Sorry, Alfred," she said smiling. "I don't mean you." Meredith slid over to the far seat and peered out of the door at Dick. "I guess you don't scare as easy as the other two men of the house."

Dick huffed and slid into the car. Alfred shut the door behind him, settled into the driver's seat, and got them on their way.

"Certainly not," Alfred said. They bore the rest of the ride in silence.

Arrival at school was déjà vu. Again, Meredith was left behind as Dick dragged off Barbara Gordon, but at least Meredith knew where her classes were this time. She forewent her locker and headed straight there. Off to a better start, she dared to hope she'd make it through to lunch with less drama today, and in Dick's temper he hadn't noticed that her backpack was significantly more full than yesterday. Today was indeed off to a much more promising start, and she had plans to capitalize on that.

Come lunch time, though, Meredith had realized that something was going on that she hadn't accounted for. Dick had been texting between, and even during, classes all morning, and when she followed the other students out of class for lunch only to find him waiting for her with Artemis she wasn't surprised. She wasn't surprised when Artemis demanded she follow them out around the back of the school building either. She was surprised when she got there.

* * *

Kaldur wasn't at all sure he was ok with this. Last night, Artemis had sent out a command to meet up at the cave to the entire team minus Robin. There, she animatedly informed them of what she'd discovered and insisted that they meet at Gotham Academy the next day to confront the issue, but she had not been well pleased with the response. For one, it had come out that Kid Flash had known all along who Robin was and by extension who Raksha would become to the Wayne household. Artemis had been furious with him over that. More furious, in any case. Kid Flash had been furious at her suggestion that he had endangered Robin by not telling anyone what he knew. All in all, it had been a very loud meeting. Only Kaldur's calm stubbornness had eventually allowed him to convince Artemis and the rest of the team that only he should come to meet Richard Grayson and Meredith Wayne. Trying to get everyone to agree to that compromise made things even louder, since it left him with both Artemis and Robin's very concerned girlfriend yelling at him. It certainly was a compromise. He hadn't even thought he should be coming. Batman did not approve of metas in his city, and just because Kaldur wasn't technically a meta-human but an Atlantean that did not mean he felt comfortable being anywhere near Gotham. Or for that matter going behind Robin's back to meet him, uninvited, in civilian clothing. He was sitting on a curb behind the school trying to remain calm and inconspicuous when the door behind him creaked open. Turning, he got his first look at Artemis, Robin, and Raksha in civilian garb, and he didn't feel any better about the encounter when he saw Robin, or Richard rather, smiling and clearly not upset that Kaldur was there. Even now, thoughts of his youngest team member were rarely happy ones for him.

"Kaldur!" Richard Grayson said, holding out his hand to shake. "B is so going to kill you if he hears about this!" he said happily.

"Yes," Kaldur said, taking the boy's hand. "I am hoping he will not."

"You and me both," Richard Grayson said. "I certainly won't be telling him. Artemis told me you were coming." At that, he turned to look somewhat accusingly at Artemis, and Kaldur gathered she hadn't given him much of a heads up or, perhaps, much of a choice.

"Yes," Kaldur said again, "The team felt someone should come, and I felt it should be me. I am sorry. Zatanna did wish to come too, but I convinced her not to."

"Oh," Richard Grayson said, taking back his hand and shoving it into his pocket awkwardly. "Yeah, that's ok. I'll . . . I'll ask B if I can call her or something. It's just been really weird around here, y'know."

Kaldur didn't know what to say to that, so he just nodded and looked again at the real reason for his visit. The girl, Meredith Wayne now, smiled back at him evenly. His first thought was of how absolutely unthreatening she looked, but, then, that was the same issue he was having with this Richard Grayson. The resemblance was uncanny on all counts, it seemed, including their ability to appear defenseless.

"Kaldur, this is Meredith," Richard Grayson said, making a reluctant introduction, "She's not as like me as she looks."

Kaldur blinked at the bitterness in that statement. "Of course not," he said simply, trying to reassure his teammate that he had long ago accepted that truth as obvious. "Meredith Wayne –," he began.

"Just Meredith," Meredith said, interrupting him. "It's awkward all around when people use the last name."

"I see," Kaldur said, even though he didn't. "Meredith, then. My team . . . my team wishes you to know that we look forward to getting to know you better."

Meredith grinned, and Kaldur found himself turning to put Richard behind him as though he couldn't quite handle the sight of the two of them at once.

"How long did it take you to come up with such a diplomatic way of putting it?" Meredith asked.

Kaldur blinked. "It . . . well, about five hours," he said, smiling tentatively.

"Alright then," Meredith said, laughing. "I look forward to getting to know them better too." She turned to Artemis. "Can I go now, miss warden, ma'am?"

"Fine, get out of here," Artemis said, leaning away from her as though she had some contagion. "Go stuff your face."

Meredith nodded in mock respect and turned back to Kaldur. "No, really. I look forward to getting to know you better. I'm told you're the leader," she said, ignoring the way the Atlantean winced slightly at that, "and I get that your opinion of me will mean something to the rest of your team. I've got the task of winning over the skeptics for now, so I'll add your name to the list."

"I wish to be honest with you," Kaldur said, stepping forward, "I do not belong on that list. I have known many people with questionable pasts who have done much good with their lives in time. I have seen nothing of what you have done with my own eyes except one thing; one of my teammates, a friend, is alive because of you. You may consider my mind open. And because experience has also taught me that those seeking to rise above their pasts rarely find it easy," he held out his hand as Richard had done to him, smiling, "I risk the anger of my teammates to wish you _agathe tuxe_. That is,-"

"'Good luck'," Meredith translated, taking his hand. "Thank you. You're right, I'm going to need it. Now," she abruptly waved and turned to leave, "go tell your team that you chewed me out. We all need to get back to lunch."

Watching her leave, Kaldur was left with an odd thought. He could see in his mind's eye as Meredith turned the way a cape might flare behind her as she did so. The image came to him uncalled for, but so real and so natural. Maybe it was how like Richard Grayson she looked that made him see that, but he didn't think so. It was hard to look at Richard right now and see Robin. All he really knew in that moment was what he felt: she belonged in a cape. He turned back toward Richard whose face was carefully blank, and he wondered what Robin thought of his wishing the girl good luck. Whatever he was thinking, it was clear to him that Robin was confused, unsettled. The rest of the team was worse than unsettled. Deep down, Kaldur wanted nothing more than to hand over leadership to Robin right here, right now, and walk away from that responsibility today. He had had every intention of doing just that, but now he saw that he couldn't. His team was in crisis, and he couldn't hand it over to Robin when Robin himself didn't have his head on straight just yet.

"Richard, I am sorry to have imposed," Kaldur said, sighing. "Thank you for seeing me. I won't stay any longer."

If nothing else, perhaps he could stay leader just long enough to help the girl find her place and the team find their feet again. He owed both her and his friends that much. Then, for certain, he would finally hand over this burden.

* * *

Meredith was counting her blessings as she went to her locker after lunch. There were far more of them than she had expected to have when she began this day. Adding to the fact that Grayson had been too preoccupied with his mood swings to notice her bulging backpack, the meet-up behind the school hadn't gotten her into a fight but had resulted in Grayson, Artemis, and resultantly Barbara Gordon being far too busy thinking to pay attention to her over lunch. In fact, while Artemis was looking furious as usual and Gordon seemed confused, Dick looked thoughtful, and Meredith allowed herself to hope that he was thinking hard about what the Atlantean had said. Not that she was crossing her fingers or anything, but she made sure not to go anywhere near Grayson during lunch for fear of interrupting his potentially beneficial thought process. Perhaps most importantly, though, she had an unexpected ally on the team, the team leader no less.

She'd be able to take advantage of that unexpected inroad later, though. For now, she would take advantage of everyone's being distracted by that unexpected inroad. She packed all of her school books and most of her school materials into her locker, keeping out only a small notebook and a pencil. This left her with only the few extra things she'd brought today still in her backpack. She added another item to her list of blessings she was counting as she retraced the route Artemis and Richard had taken her to meet Aqualad. They'd given her a much better way out of the school than she'd planned on using. She stepped out of the door and checked her surroundings and her six before closing it behind her.

Taking off jogging past the immaculate athletics field, she took the time to make sure she wouldn't be seen. She knew it would be discovered that she wasn't at school eventually, and that was fine. Having no cover up for playing hooky would be the perfect cover up for the things she didn't want anyone knowing she was doing while playing hooky. On the other hand, no one needed to know she was gone just yet. She wasn't sure exactly how Mr. Wayne would react to a mostly distrusted ex-assassin on the loose in Gotham, but she didn't need the kind of interference she imagined he'd run on her. A few times, it was necessary for her to wait for students and faculty to pass out of view of her. It was warmer by now than it had been this morning, and in any case Gothamites were used to chilly weather; so there a few people outside. She could be patient, though, and as soon as the bell rang the only outstanding problem she had was a couple playing hooky themselves. They clearly were not paying attention to anyone but each other, though. Instinctually, Meredith filed away in her mind who the two students were. You never knew what information might become useful to you later.

When she finally cleared the campus, she broke into a real run. Gotham Academy wasn't exactly in the middle of the city, and that was exactly where she needed to get. She didn't quite have the time to leisurely stroll all the way to her destination. At this point, she didn't worry about anyone seeing her. If anyone had the free time to call a school and let them know a student was running away from campus, they'd likely call her in as a probable male member of the track team at the speed she was going. Twenty minutes later, she made the outskirts of the real Gotham City. The first thing she needed was an alleyway. She made her way into one between apartment complexes via fire-escapes in case she found any apartments with windows open, and again it was her lucky day. Now she wouldn't have to change behind a trash can. The room inside was empty, so she slipped in and quickly changed out of her school uniform and into a black shirt and black skinny jeans. She slipped back out and onto the fire-escape before putting on her tennis shoes; she didn't want to get caught half-naked in an alley, but she also didn't fancy getting caught in someone's home. She left her shoes artfully half-tied; jumped back down to the ground; took a deep, relieved breath at being back on ground level; and she was off. She would be familiar to anyone who looked closely, but she doubted anyone had ever seen Richard Grayson slumming around Gotham looking like a wannabe goth kid. She doubted they would look closely.

Her first stop was in Crime Alley. Granted, not the best place for a girl to go all by herself, if at all, but it was a little more manageable in the daytime. And she could take care of herself. On her way there, though, she needed to stop at a bank. Now there was a potential problem, but not one she couldn't get around. All she needed was a bank in the kind of area someone from the Wayne household would never find themselves in. Fortunately, she knew the city nearly inside and out. She had been here before, on several occasions, going back to when she had been very young. Not only had she visited back before Batman existed, but she had been here back when Mr. Wayne's first name had still been Thomas, not Bruce. On top of which, she had made quick study of a more recent map of the city, which she still had in her backpack if for some odd reason she happened to forget anything. It was unlikely – she'd memorized the whole thing –, but she liked to be prepared. She knew exactly where to find what she needed. The bank she had in mind was a small one on the way toward Crime Alley from her current position. It was quite old. It used to be a place where a Wayne might be seen, but not since the Wayne murders and the area's decline into poverty and depravity. Now it served her needs perfectly as somewhere she was familiar with but would never be expected.

She made it there just past 2:00 p.m., and by then walking all the way there had turned her goth look into a grungy goth look. Perfect. She pushed her way through the sturdy but aging doors and got in the long line for the teller. That was the thing about grungy banks in grungy neighborhoods; they tended to have long lines of grungy people. It was a step up from the poverty line, and the criminal line, when you could afford to use online banking, whether because you couldn't afford a computer or couldn't afford for anyone to hack your dirty business. Meredith had plenty of time to look around, and she was surprised at how much it hurt to see how far this place had fallen. It was easy to see how Bruce Wayne had become the Batman when not only had tragedy hit his home at such a young age, but every reminder of the happy times before that tragedy had begun to crumble around him. This bank was literally crumbling. As the line moved slowly forward, though, she smiled. The condition of the floor was more familiar to her. It was a little worn, yes, but it still shone and squeaked even though the shoes walking on it these days barely had soles. Someone was taking good care of something here at least.

When she reached the front of the line, she unzipped her backpack, pulled out a plastic bag, and placed it on the counter.

"I need these foreign currencies exchanged for American dollars," Meredith said, not waiting to be greeted. The teller hadn't greeted anyone else.

The haggard elderly woman behind the counter with the questionable home hair-dying kit sighed and grimaced as she opened the bag and fingered through the contents. Inside, there were five smaller plastic bags, and the woman already looked exasperated.

"What is this, kid?" the woman asked. She was clearly a smoker.

Meredith smiled widely and made her answer obnoxiously perky. "I've organized the money into the different currencies to make your job easier."

"Well, thank you for that," the woman replied sarcastically.

"Oh," Meredith leaned forward, "you're very welcome." She gave the woman another wide smile for good measure.

The woman scowled and went about her work in silence. When she was finished, she took the bills and placed them inside a bag inside a bag inside a bag inside a bag inside a bag . . . inside the big bag. She grinned widely showing off stained teeth as she placed the bag back on the counter and slid it toward Meredith.

"There you are," the woman said in imitation of Meredith's perkiness. "That's-"

"No," Meredith interrupted, putting the back into her backpack and zipping it. "I'll take your word for it that it's the right amount. Have a nice day!" With that, she hurried out of the bank. There was a few hundred worth of money in there, or should have been, but she couldn't risk pulling it out to count it in this area and didn't really want the teller announcing it for everyone to hear either. She really was going to just have to take the woman's word for it. She did at least stop in the bathroom to remove a few tens from the multiple bagging job, though. She stuck them in the front zippered pocket of the backpack where it would be easily accessible and not leave her keeping all her money in one place. She carried her backpack slung over just one shoulder and with her arm hanging over the front pocket from then on. As she made her way to Crime Alley, she had a thought. She didn't have access to a computer at this time, so she could only hope the place she was going still existed. On top of that, she sincerely hoped that if it did it only looked slummy when she got there rather than actually being unsanitary and questionable. She didn't get many questioning glances as she entered Crime Alley, but she hadn't expected to. If anything, going to the bank had solidified for her that no one would ask her questions. The teller hadn't cared that she was a delinquent or questioned where on earth she had gotten that much money in so many different currencies. Halfway down the street, she was relieved to see that the establishment she was looking for was still there and still open. The Coy Dragon tattoo parlor. Even now the name made her smile. She liked word-play, always had even before the Robin program. This building's name, she knew only because she was old enough to, had come from the first ink the owner had ever done back when he was still an apprentice in Japan: a dragon with koi fish scales and fins. The last time she had been here the master had still been doing that ink, but it was one of his most expensive designs, always under high demand, and for that reason she doubted it was still popular. She couldn't imagine most people here having that kind of spare cash. Maybe a few crime bosses still ruled Gotham with that ink though.

She pushed through the sticking door and into the parlor. She had hoped that her new look would keep her from being recognized by the master, since the last time she had been in here had been before the Robin program, but as it turned out she needn't have worried. The young man behind the front counter was not the old master she had known. Time goes on.

"Hey," Meredith called. "This still the best place in Gotham for ink?" She gave the man a minute to look up at her and process her look with interest. "Used to be, but last time I was here this area wasn't such a dump. I don't need AIDS or anything, y'know?"

The man was Japanese and had the same ears that stuck straight outward that the previous master had. She figured he was kin. His hair, though, was something the old master would never have approved of, half of it shaved completely off and the other half long down to his waist.

Meredith nodded at his hairdo. "That hair doesn't get in the way of your work, does it?"

"You have a lot of questions, boyo," the man said, voice accented but sure. "This is still the best place in Gotham for ink. If you can pay for it. And if you could pay for it, you'd be in school right now." He smiled, and his teeth were perfect and clean. That made Meredith smile too; the inside of the place was old but smelled clean and the new owner was clean, so she guessed business hadn't been as bad as all that after all.

"Or," Meredith said, still smiling warmly, "I played hooky today just to come here."

"So you are in school!" the man laughed. "And here you were giving me something bogus about being here back when Crime Alley was nice."

Meredith just shrugged. "Yeah, that one always gets a laugh. Look, I'm playing hooky, right? So I don't have much time. You have the time to squeeze me in for something small, Mr. . . .Yoshida is it still?"

"Friends call me Yoshi," he said. "Yoshida was my father, you know? Sure, if you've got money, I've got time. Slow time for me right now." He waved her back, and she followed.

"You mean business isn't good?" Meredith asked.

"Iia, iia," Yoshi said, laughing. "No. Business is great. Time of day is slow time. You know what you want?

"I do," Meredith said. "I have it drawn out myself."

"Alright, hand me the paper, and you sit here in this chair. I'll see what I-" he cut off frowning as she handed him a folded piece of paper and he opened it to see the design. The art was very simple, just a small black line-drawing. The design was a small bird banking slightly in mid-flight so that one could see both wings. The top wing in the design was slightly bent shut, not fully extended, with tiny black lines filling in to suggest the feathers. The bottom wing was fully extended but contained only one small black line where the feathers should have been. The bird's head was tilted toward the extended wing, one small tear hanging beneath its eye. It looked as though in mid-flight it had stopped flying a moment to look sadly at the one wing. Yoshi said as much to Meredith.

"I am thinking, then, if I am right, that the bird should be tumbling down slightly from his flight. Where did you want it?" he asked.

"I . . . like that idea," Meredith said. "I want it on my left wrist, head facing away from me, and," she paused to look around the black and white decorate room at the examples of Yoshi's work hanging on the wall. She knew they were his and not his father's just by looking at them, but his father's influence was strong. "And I'd like you to add a personal touch. I like what you do."

Yoshi smiled. "Very good. Just black and white, ne?"

"Just black and white," Meredith said, leaning back in the chair as he got his equipment ready.

* * *

It was 3:17 when Meredith left the tattoo parlor one-hundred dollars out and with one lovely tattoo burning at her wrist. Yoshi had taken her design and done it in a tattoo rendition of old Japanese ink paintings, making sure that the one line in the extended wing was distinct as she had insisted. It was perfect, and currently tucked away under a bandage. Now she needed to get on to her next task. School would be out soon, and Richard and Alfred would be noticing, if someone hadn't already, that she was missing. She'd still have plenty of time as long as she got to her next destination without being stopped. She got onto the nearest elevated train and took it as close as she could get to Union Station. She had to make it to Union the rest of the way on foot since it was closed to the public right now. She really hoped that what she'd been hearing on the news was accurate; she had no way to check. The hard part was getting in without being seen by any police or investigators on the property. The best way in was going to be the window in the bathroom at the train level. One might assume that meant she'd have to climb all the way up the outside without being spotted. Not so easy in the daylight, but she'd thought of a way around that too.

First, she ducked into an alleyway again. This time, she didn't try to get inside to change; she was going for association, but she didn't want to associate him with more than necessary. She quickly slipped her red hoodie over the black shirt, pulled off her shoes and black jeans, then put on a pair of green leggings and replaced her shoes. Just for good measure, she mussed her hair to a more natural look and used a black lip crayon to draw something resembling a mask onto her face. She realized this part of her little solo mission was a bit of a stretch, but she wasn't actually intending to talk to anyone face-to-face if possible. What she wanted was for anyone standing below or passing by on the train who saw her climbing a building to think they saw Robin. She took a moment to prepare herself mentally for what she was about to do. Life didn't always give her the chance to prepare herself before she had to deal with heights, but today she had time and she was taking it. She sank herself into deep calm, then she took to the rooftops. She was quiet, but even so it strained her imagination that no one ever looked up and saw her. She supposed it was true that it wasn't night, but she still never failed to be surprised when people in cities with vigilantes who flew or swung from rooftops never looked up. Apparently it was the same in Gotham as it was in Starling.

She came to the edge of the closest building to the station and confronted her next problem. She wasn't Robin. She wasn't even Raksha. She had no equipment, no gadgetry, not even any rope. All she had was an extra of the long, sturdy strips of cloth she used to bind her chest. She pulled that out, looped it up loosely, and held it in her teeth. She could use it to help her climb up the station, but it wasn't going to help her get on the station. That was her current problem, and she was just going to have to solve it by jumping. There was no way she could jump from a building on one side of the elevated train tracks to a building on the other side of them. It was simply too far, so she had chosen a building which was directly across from one of the support columns for the elevated tracks. Fortunately, these columns were made of metal beams at angles to each other, not concrete like support columns for highways. As long as she jumped far enough and could get hold of one of the beams she'd be fine. Then she had an idea that would maybe help. She took her chest wrap out of her teeth and held it loosely in her right hand with one of the ends sticking out of her fist by her thumb. She backed up on the rooftop, then took off running. At the very edge of the roof, she tucked into a flip that placed her feet right on the farthest corner of the edge where she could feel it biting into the soles of her feet right through her shoes. Then she leapt.

When she hit one of the vertical outer beams of the column, she wrapped herself around it and reached around the beam to grab the end of her chest wrap. She quickly wrapped it around her wrist and gripped it tightly so that a short stretch of fabric between her hands was around the beam holding her to it. This gave her more maneuverability than hugging it, and she began this process over again, leaping from one beam to the next until she was on the other side of the column. By now, she could hear that she had been spotted. She had left her hood down, because she wanted the hair and "mask" to be seen. Advantage one of looking far too much like Robin: looking far too much like Robin for anyone to wonder much why Robin was in a hoodie instead of Kevlar. Or using a chest wrap to jump buildings instead of bat-rope. She hoped, anyway. It did mean, though, that she had to keep moving. If someone got a good photo of her, that would present awkward problems. She started climbing upward. She needed to get train level fast.

When she had gotten as high as she could go and still be under the tracks, she eyeballed her next target and grinned. What she'd have to do next would be difficult, and tucked in her calm away from her fear of heights it thrilled her. "Decent acrobat", indeed. She hoped Grayson somehow got to see just how decent. The window didn't open and she couldn't open it even if it did, but it also wasn't sturdy. No one had seen fit to use overly thick glass or protect the glass with bars: it was several stories up in the air. The good news was that she could break through it as long as she put enough force behind her jump and aimed well. The bad news was the station hugged the tracks and the window was on the side of the building housing it, which meant that she was both below and to the side of the window. She was going to have to swing into the window. And she was going to have to do it fast. She didn't have to look down to know that police had arrived on the scene; she could hear the sirens.

She wedged herself into the crook between two of the angled beams where she could sit without having to hold on and looped her cloth over the smaller railing that ran just underneath the electrified one that ran the train. Then she ran her hands down the cloth until she was hanging at the correct length and looped the rest of the length around her hands so that when she let go of the cloth it would let go of her, but not before. For a moment, she doubted herself. She was going to have to get up enough momentum to slingshot into that window from an awkward angle and break it, but she had only a short length of about five feet to swing on and a distance of about ten to travel. Lengthen the cloth anymore and she'd get caught on the beams. She shook mentally shook herself and began to swing. She was an accomplished gymnast and trapeze artist, even trained on aerial silks. She'd been taught how to fly. So she flew.

When she'd gained as much momentum as she could get she swung out on the angle she needed and slowly released her hold on the cloth, letting it slide through her fingers and elongate her arc. She slammed through the glass and let go completely. And she was in. Now, she estimated she had about five minutes to look around before a cop managed to get over the still turnstiles, run up the still escalators, and try to arrest her. No time to catch her breath then.

* * *

Dick was fairly certain that Meredith wasn't late because she was socializing this time. He checked his watch again. School had let out fifteen minutes ago. Still no sign of his evil twin. He had texted both Artemis and Babs to ask if they had seen her, and they had both said they had not but would look. It was starting to look like he was going to have to also. Artemis came over to the car looking very awkward and unsure of herself, another thing Dick might in other circumstances find funny, Artemis acting fidgety. Civvie Artemis was basically just funny. Dick hoped that when all this blew over he'd still have a sense of humor to resurrect from the aftermath. He scooted over to the window closest the school and pushed the button to silently roll it down.

"Anything?" Dick asked when it became clear Artemis didn't know how to speak when within ten feet of a Royce. Actually, it was questionable whether she was even within ten feet.

Artemis cleared her throat. "Nothing. Um, Gordon was looking too, and she told me she hasn't found anything either. Think she bailed after . . . you know, after before lunch?"

Dick hastily opened the car door and scrambled out, putting a hand on Artemis' arm and leading her back to the school. "Don't talk about that stuff in front of Alfred. Ok? Team secrets?"

"Alfred," Artemis said. "The chauffeur?"

"Butler," Dick corrected, holding the school's front door open for her.

"But he's driving you around, money-bags; that's a chauffer," Artemis said, walking briskly inside with Dick close behind her.

"Part of his job, not the whole job. Look, can we concentrate?" Dick said as he ducked past Artemis and turned the corner toward his grade's lockers.

"Why? I told you she's not here. What are you looking for?" Artemis asked, sounding defensive.

"Her locker," Dick said. "I'm going to check to see if she left anything."

"You know her code?" She supposed she wasn't surprised.

"No. I'm going to break in," Dick said stopping in front of a locker.

Artemis supposed she wasn't surprised by that either. A few seconds of jangling and tugging later and Dick had done just that.

"Ok, so," Dick said as he riffled through Meredith Wayne's things, "she left all of her school supplies here. She didn't do that yesterday."

"So she was planning on coming back?" Artemis asked.

"Maybe. Weird." Dick pulled a cell phone out of his pocket, and Artemis tried not to stare at the thing. It probably cost more than the rent for her apartment. He hit a button and waited for the other end to pick up.

"Thought you should know she's not here," Dick said suddenly into the phone. "Yeah, I dunno, I haven't seen her since before lunch." He waited while the other end talked. "No, I mean, she could've been there; I just wasn't really looking for her." He waited again, scowling and shoving his free hand in his pocket. "It's not like she's my responsibility!" He broke off, blushing suddenly and staring at his feet. He nodded, then realized no one could see that through the phone. "Yeah, ok? I got it!" He took a deep breath and nodded again as the person talked for a stretch. "I got it. We'll hold the fort." Dick pocketed the phone silently.

"So who was that?" Artemis said, crossing her arms and tilting her head to watch the last shade of pink fade from Dick's cheeks.

"Bruce," Dick said simply. He sighed. "So I have to go home and . . . keep an eye on things. In case she comes back there. Want to keep me company?"

Artemis was conflicted. "Did tall, dark, and gloomy say that was ok?" No way did she want to step foot in a place like Wayne Manor, but if Robin needed help someone should be there.

"Yeah, he told me to bring you along."

"Then I guess I'm coming, money-bags." Artemis ruined her confident attitude by fidgeting again.

"Then you're riding with me and the _butler_ ," Dick said. "B-U-T-L-E-R. And don't call me that."

* * *

Bruce had been in the office that day and taken Dick's call from his desk phone. His secretary had told him it was Richard calling from his cell before she had transferred the call to him. He told her goodbye and locked his office door on his way out.

He'd sent out a signal to the Batmobile to be in the small Batcave he'd had built underneath the office building, and he met it there, changing quickly and jumping in. He still didn't know how Dick had lost sight of the girl. What, had she suddenly started mimicking a school desk? Daytime or not, he needed to find her fast. Who knew how long she'd been loose? Dick, Artemis, and Alfred would return home in case she doubled back there and tried to pull anything, and he'd do the searching. First things first, he tried the Bat-trackers he'd placed in the lining of Meredith's backpack and school jacket. He hummed thoughtfully to himself as he watched the GPS monitor: she'd ditched the trackers. He had mostly expected that. He turned on the police radio, and left the cave. He'd run the route into town from the school and hope that whatever she was up to . . . well, he wasn't sure he hoped it would be noticed by police or not. Not five minutes on the road, he heard the call for someone scaling the elevated train. He switched through news channels on the console television until he found one that had just begun covering it, then altered his course for the fastest route to old Wayne Tower and Union Station. The footage of the climber wasn't great, but it was obvious who was currently buildering on his father's train.

He arrived just ten minutes later, hugging what little shade there was in an alley across from the station. Already the crowd that had gathered to watch the spectacle was dispersing and the police looked to be doing little except scratching their collectively confused scalps. She was either gone already or still in the station hiding somehow. If the former, he again had no idea where she'd gone, and if the latter he didn't much like the idea of going in there himself and planting the idea that he actually was affiliated with her. On the other hand, how much damage would that really cause? It was clear she had meant to be mistaken for Robin, and Robin was already connected to him. He could play on that himself and go along with the ruse, even if certain knowledgeable people like Jim would still have questions. Batman tapped a thumb on the steering will, eyes narrowing behind his cowl as he watched the police officers start to notice the parked Batmobile. He was going to have to go in there. He undid his seatbelt but stopped short when he heard a quick knock on the back window. He could see the vague silhouette of a small figure. He'd already guessed who it was, but he reached to his console, pulling back a bar on a graded scale on the touch screen to lighten the tint of the windows. Meredith finally had her hood up and was leaning, arms crossed, for all the world uncaringly against the Batmobile. Batman growled under his breath and opened the hood.

"Get in," Batman said.

Meredith jumped the side of the car like a hurdle just in time for the hood to slide over her. She glanced up at the hood. It didn't mesh with what she knew of the Batman that he'd try to kill someone by slamming a car door on them. And that the car door probably had a safety mechanism on it that kept it from slicing people in two. Probably. On further reflection, perhaps she didn't want to reflect on that for too long. She straightened in her seat as a seatbelt swept across her torso and pulled taught, the car pulling out into the street amidst cries and wild gestures from civilians and policemen alike. Both driver and passenger stayed silent until they had pulled away from the transportation hub of old Wayne Tower and were on their way out of the city.

"What were you doing?" Batman asked, cutting straight to the point. He didn't bother sending a message to the cave that he was returning with his charge. Alfred would see that the Batmobile was headed home.

"See, this is how I know you're not as much of a cynic as people say you are," Meredith said. "A more cynical man would ask if he even wanted to know what I was doing."

Batman took a turn hard. "Answer the question," he growled, voice rising.

"Ok, alright!" Meredith said. "Um, skipping class and getting a tattoo. Typical stuff. Run-of-the-mill."

"Typical stuff?" Batman said, glancing at her in the rearview. His eyes in the mirror were barely slits and colorless behind his cowl; Meredith quelled a shudder.

"Well, typical delinquent stuff," Meredith said.

There was a moment of silence which Meredith felt she needed to interrupt, but she didn't dare in case she said the wrong thing. Which nearly made her laugh, because she was very intentionally saying quite a few wrong things. The real issue was whether or not she wanted to say a wrong thing she hadn't intended to say. There was something about the terror of climbing multi-storied structures and leaping from them which had a way of making her think too much. And try to laugh at inappropriate times.

"So," Batman began again, dangerously quiet, "I'm to understand that you skipped school, dressed up in a terrible tribute to Robin, and got a tattoo. In a train station."

"Um," Meredith said, momentarily unsure of what point to correct first, "No . . ."

"No?" Batman shot back. "Then you'd better start explaining exactly what I am supposed to understand! When you came to my house to be a part of my life, my family's life, to impose on Alfred's hospitality and . . ." He stopped and took a calming breath; he wasn't sure what he could even say about what had been done to Dick's life. He wasn't even sure he truly knew or understood. "We had an understanding that you wanted to start over and live the kind of life I could give you. That life does not include delinquency and trespassing!"

"Buildering," Meredith corrected, not wanting to point out the hypocrisy in that statement. "Sorry, trespassing. But it didn't . . . that's not how it happened."

"I said," Batman hissed, "explain."

"I wasn't in the red and green at first," Meredith began. "I was in all black, no bad Robin rip-offs. I promise. I only made two stops, and I didn't draw much attention to myself. Hopefully, no one recognized me. If someone did, they probably think I was just being, well, a delinquent. Doing delinquent stuff, like I said."

"Fine," Batman said. "And the 'buildering'?"

"That," Meredith said as she fidgeted, tugging her hoodie strings absently and trying to make them even lengths, "Ok, that I did mean to be a Robin rip-off. I thought that if anybody saw me I'd look so much like the real thing that they wouldn't question it too much."

"Never mind that if they don't question it whatever you did falls on Robin's head," Batman growled.

Hearing him speak in that voice, Meredith felt that perhaps it wasn't the road or the speed that made the car itself roar, but the sheer force of who drove it. She almost wondered what it would sound like to her if she drove it. What if Robin drove it? She shook her head and pulled her hood up.

"I didn't do anything he wouldn't have feasibly been doing if the hour had been later," Meredith said. "I was investigating."

"You were what?" Batman said, possibly not noticing that he was yelling and possibly not noticing that his foot was going a little lead on the gas pedal.

"You know there were deaths there," Meredith explained. "They're calling it an illness. I was looking for a cause."

"Why?" Batman said.

"Because it's what I'm here for," Meredith yelled back. She told herself it was because the road noise was so loud. "If you want to talk about what understandings we had when I came here, fine! Look, I don't expect you to trust me, but I have a job to do, I came here to do it, and I will. Your little trackers and easily distracted protégés aren't going to stop me. You almost insult me by even trying that."

The cave was coming in sight. "It's your job to protect Gotham from plague?" Batman asked in clear sarcasm. "Your job is to learn how to not be what you are. That is your only job." He parked the car and opened the hood. "It's the only job you're allowed to have until I say otherwise, and today . . . today you just proved that you are nowhere near succeeding." Meredith sat up tall and straight as Batman turned in his seat to look her in the eyes. "I want to make it clear that it is enough of a privilege for you to go to school with civilians, with my ward and his teammate and another of my associates, and you are not owed any others. I do not expect to have an assassin running loose in my city again. If I have to remove you from that school in order to ensure that doesn't happen, I will."

Meredith choked on her words. Batman watched as she tugged on her hoodie strings, and she tried not to watch as he just stared at her.

"That's not fair," Meredith said, speaking at the back of the driver's seat.

"No," Batman said, stabbing a finger at her. "It's more than fair. And it's how this is going to work. You are not allowed in the city. Not without me there. Not ever."

Meredith's head shot up, and Batman's eyes widened as she got right in his face. But he didn't move back.

"Keep the backpack," Meredith spat, then she vaulted out of the car. "There's something in it I think you'll want to see."

She left the cave pocketing the money she had changed earlier; she had removed it from the backpack during the drive. It would go in her small lock-box, and she'd be taking precautions against a household of expert lock-pickers.

* * *

With her remaining money tucked safely away and her green leggings changed out for light grey ones, Meredith ventured out of her room and made her way toward the living area where she hoped to either find the butler or Grayson, who probably knew where the man was. She supposed a smart person would have holed away in their room rather than risk running into Mr. Wayne again, but while she was smart she was also somewhat desensitized. She had plenty of experience living in hostile environments. Besides, she was being rebellious today. As she approached the living room, she could hear fast, quiet taps and a noise like shuffling papers. Grayson was probably on a computer or similar device, and that had to be Alfred with him. She'd never seen Grayson use actual paper anywhere but in class, a true heir to the technological age.

Meredith came down the stairs and swung side-long into the lush living room, gripping the doorframe. She called the butler's name before she'd really stopped to take in the room. Now as she looked toward the dark leather seating, she noted her mistake: the shuffling noise had been Artemis playing cards.

"And you're here because?" Meredith straightened up and rested her hands on her hips.

Artemis snorted. "Maybe because I was invited. Unlike some people."

Meredith grinned. "My being here still disturbs you that much?"

"Yeah," Artemis said, placing a card. She was playing solitaire. "Maybe it does."

"Well, maybe you should go someplace more turbing," Meredith turned dismissively to Dick. "I'm looking for Alfr-"

"That's not funny!" Artemis looked as if she'd burst with her indignation, and Meredith, frankly, wondered how she didn't with the number of times in a day she lost her temper. She'd need to get that in check before she reached any considerable age. "You could show a little respect for the fact that those jokes aren't yours!"

"You could show a little respect for the fact that this house isn't yours," Meredith returned, dropping her hands to her side and the grin from her face.

"Like I said," Artemis sneered back, "I was invited. By Mr. Wayne."

"Yeah, well, it wouldn't be the last time Mr. Wayne was an idiot today," Meredith spat. She covered the expanse of soft, beige carpet between them in a few brisk steps, looming over the other girl where she sat on the couch. "And you're forgetting, I actually _was_ invited."

Artemis leaned back into the couch and crossed her arms. "Yeah, well, it wouldn't be the last time Mr. Wayne was an idiot."

Meredith rolled her eyes and huffed. "That makes much less sense than you think it does. Think about it." She held Artemis' eyes as she reached over and placed the next card for her. "And tell Aqualad I said hello again the next time you see him." It was a cheap dig, but Artemis didn't require better.

Artemis growled. "Don't get carried away. He's only being nice because he-"

"Feels guilty that I had to save Robin when he couldn't?" Meredith finished. "I know. But isn't that why you can't get enough of snarling at me? You shouldn't judge." She turned her back completely on Artemis before the girl could say another word and met Grayson's glare. He'd been silent this whole time; that more than anything else ate at her. He was still setting the dogs on her. "You should head to the cave. I think Mr. Wayne is going to want you to help him finish what I started."

Meredith turned on the ball of her foot and was gone from the room in the time it took Dick to decide whether he was angry or confused. He decided he was both. Meredith decided to go ahead and retreat to her room after all.

* * *

Robin joined Batman in front of the Batcomputer. He had already changed into his suit without checking with Batman first in the hopes he'd let it pass without debating whether or not Robin was ready for patrol tonight. Now he scanned the bright screen as Batman brought up a list of chemical compounds. It appeared he was analyzing something. Robin would likely be told what in time or could just check the labelling himself when the spectrophotometer stopped running. Trying to follow the chart of trace chemicals was not helping him piece it together, not that the list was difficult to follow. The computer was brightly lit, but with soft blue lights akin to low-level laser illumination which was very easy on the eyes, even when one spent hours in a dark cave. On top of which, Robin himself had made a few adjustments with time, helping to write a good portion of the programming that the current Batcomputer ran on. Lists like this one were programmed by him, when not being manually flipped through, to scroll at a pace that matched the user's speed of reading. Right now it was running on the speed at which he could follow, as it usually did. He could read faster than almost any of his peers, Babs being his closest competition, but Bruce read considerably faster; so unless Bruce was on the computer for long lengths without Dick looking over his shoulder the computer ran at Robin's read-speed. That gave him some peace of mind about patrol tonight: clearly, Bruce had expected him to be in the cave tonight or the computer would have been running faster. Instead of interrupting, he just watched; being down here with Batman like normal was calming, and since Artemis had already headed home he had nothing to do but wait. Meredith's dig at him had made it sound like whatever Batman was doing had to do with what she'd gone missing to do today, but he didn't feel like interrupting his calm with thoughts of her long enough to ask.

After a while, the list stopped scrolling, and Batman sat back in his chair. "Print the analysis and put it in a folder." He continued staring at the screen.

Robin reached around him to hit print. Occasionally, Batman got so lost in thought he'd delegate tasks which were ridiculous to delegate. What he wanted, in reality, was to be able to sit there and think without having to get up and fetch the analysis after it had printed, but he would forget in his preoccupation that the command to print had to be given from the computer. In his six years with him, Robin had never mentioned the oddity of this and similar requests, and Batman never seemed to stop making them. As Robin removed the finished pages from the printer, he briefly scanned them again, still puzzled as to what they could be from. The final page to be ejected, the cover page, only confused him more. It was an analysis of the amounts of chemicals in a body fluid sample from an animal identified only by its scientific name, probably a bird. He could read the Latin; it read " _turdus migratorius_ " which meant "migratory thrush", but he wasn't familiar with the animal it designated.

"What kind of bird is this?" he asked, straightening the small stack of papers on a free surface. He heard nothing at first, so he looked back at Batman who was looking at him strangely.

" _Turdus migratorius_ is a robin." He paused. "Robin."

Robin looked appropriately ashamed of himself. It struck him that Batman likely knew everything there was to know about bats, just like he seemed to know everything about everything else. "That's . . . probably something I should remember."

"Probably." Batman stood and turned to face him, abrupt and looming, then swept off to the batmobile, cape flowing behind him as always. Robin quickly grabbed an empty manila folder from a filing cabinet near the computer and put the analysis in it. He ran for the Batmobile, beating Batman to it as always. He was already seated and belted in when Batman leapt into the driver's seat, cape billowing and flapping.

Most people never suspected that one of the biggest reasons for Batman's imposing figure and movement was the cape, not only because of the image it cut draping over him as it did but also because it forced him to move in certain ways to accommodate it. It had taken Robin some time to become accustomed to the way every movement Batman made was dramatic and threatening; eventually he had figured out that when he rounded on you abruptly after getting up from the computer it was not because he was threatening you. It was just that he was subconsciously aware that anything less would leave his cape bunched up and caught behind him, possibly even where he could step on it. His stalking and leaping were essentially the cape's fault too. Personally, Dick hated capes. They were useful, but as an acrobat he found them ungainly. There was a time when that was a bittersweet realization for him, that he simply didn't feel comfortable in his mentor's favored garb. As he had moved away from Batman's shadow, though, and realized he did not want to be everything Batman was, it became easier. Now, he was not only unfazed by Batman's posturing, he did not envy it either.

It was a short ride in the Batmobile that took them to the very stretch of track Meredith had climbed earlier that day. They stopped to do their own search, – Robin was glad he was not the only one concerned she might have missed, or worse tampered with, something – and pick up the length of cloth she'd left blowing in the wind, then they were on to GCPD. As usual, they were going to clear up their paperwork before moving on to the normal patrol. That was the Bat-method for their glorified clean-up duty: big messes first, small fry after. It made sense, but sometimes it bothered him. Occasionally, more victims of "small-time" crime added up in a night than they saved cleaning up those big messes. Times like those made you wonder if you had your priorities straight.

Batman parked two blocks away and scaled a nearby store using practiced handholds, no ropes required. There was another trick of the trade. Contrary to popular belief, bat-rope was not in endless supply, and grappling guns took time to reload; both were saved for times when they were absolutely needed or, in Batman's case, whenever someone was watching. He did love his dramatic exits. Robin followed behind him as they crossed the rooftop, leapt to the next, crossed that one, and leapt to the roof of the police department. Robin, as usual, quietly handed Batman the folder and let him do the talking.

"Jim," Batman said, waiting while the commissioner turned in surprise. There was a routine to these meetings: give the commissioner a miniature stroke, wait three seconds for him to recover, and launch into the heart of the matter, ready or not. "I have something new for you." He held out the folder for Gordon to take. "A possible lead on the elevated train station deaths. I've already analyzed it; see what your people make of it. Anything on the arson case?"

James Gordon took the file and looked like he would skim it right there. Then he saw the title on the cover sheet and closed it. It made Robin feel slightly better that he wasn't the only one the title confused. Just slightly. "You were right. It wasn't arson. The salon didn't use Pantene, though. Something called, uh, Aussie. I don't know." He shrugged and ran a hand through his hair. "Barbara uses it. Apparently does the same thing. The hair just didn't burn. Anything I should know about this?" he asked, gesturing with the folder. "Besides that I'll need a lexicon and five lab assistants to help me read it."

"Yes." Batman turned toward the roof's ledge in another of his dramatic sweeps. "Your agents should stay clear of the death scenes until we figure out what this is. The illness may not be contagious, but that doesn't mean it can't travel. Today I saw the place swarmed with officers unqualified to deal with a biohazard situation. That's a good way to get them killed."

"Yeah, well, some kid apparently had a death-wish himself. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

"I'll be in touch," was all the answer Batman gave him. Robin paused to give him a nod before he followed Batman off into the shadows, out into town to start searching out some small-time criminals with evening plans in need of wrecking. They left by grappling hook this time, of course. Dramatic exits and all that.

* * *

Alfred had of course seen the news that day, and judging by the moods of masters Bruce and Dick he needed to speak to the young miss if he was going to learn anything further. However, he decided to give the girl some time to herself before going to her. It was likely that she herself was in a mood, and so it was that Alfred made his way slowly to Meredith's room some two hours after Batman and Robin had left for patrol. He paused in front of her door to straighten his jacket and collect himself.

"Miss Meredith, may I come in?" he said, the sound of his knock muffled slightly by his gloves.

He received no answer, but he had begun to treat the young miss like his other two charges and he did not believe there was any way she had not heard. He opened the door. "Excuse me," he said, then blinked as a blur of movement stilled almost as suddenly as it had begun. He stared at a pen pointed straight at his face, held tightly in a fist. He stared at the girl holding it, and she stared back, body low, squared away from him, every inch a threat.

"Now would indeed be an opportune time to make an attempt on my life," he said cautiously, "but I wouldn't recommend it. This household tends to frown upon murder for the crime of entering a room without permission."

Meredith's mouth twitched in the barest hint of a frown as she lowered the pen. Alfred swept his eyes across the room and took in a punching bag torn to shreds and spilling its violently freed contents on the floor. She must have removed it from the training room after her exercise, and since she was allowed no weapons Alfred assumed he was witnessing the damage she could truly do with just a pen. What was it she had said this morning? That he didn't scare easily? He brought his eyes back to hers and forced himself to stare, for once, into the kind of eyes he had never had the misfortune to see on young master Dick's face. Thank heavens for that. Perhaps he should have waited longer to speak to her.

"I wasn't going to kill you," Meredith said, face as expressionless as blue fire. She looked cold and calm, but underneath he could see she was a furnace. "I was threatening you."

She stood still a moment, then she moved again and Alfred forced himself not to blink. If he had, he would have missed this second blur of movement. In a moment and with hardly a sound, the pen found itself burrowed halfway into the wall to his left. Meredith stepped casually forward, then grasped her right fist in her left and stepped back again. This movement was just as casual as the forward one. Yet, her right elbow drove backward like a piston, if a silent one, hitting the wall as though master Dick were sleeping next-door and she didn't want to wake him. When she stepped forward again, the pen was nowhere to be seen, plunged into the sheetrock like a knife.

"You know, it's funny," Meredith said, crossing her arms and gazing at the butler appraisingly, "if I truly wanted to sabotage this little operation Mr. Wayne has going here, you would be the one I'd kill first. You see everything, but in the end you're just a butler. And yet no one seems to notice that I haven't."

Alfred tugged his jacket straight again, although it didn't need it, and lifted his chin. "Perhaps you're underestimating me. I am not much less capable than the others involved in 'this little operation,' and master Bruce considers me like family. You would pay dearly for killing me. If you managed it."

Meredith gave him a small half smile. She could manage it, and they both knew it. "They do rely on you more than I expected."

"How little reliance did you expect?" Alfred said, huffing. "I raised master Bruce, and I practically raised young master Dick. The Batman is a busy man. So is Bruce Wayne."

Meredith nodded. "He listens to you," she said.

"Master Bruce?" Alfred said. "No, he does not. Or at least he tries not to. I have my ways."

"I can't do this, can I?" Meredith asked. She crossed the large room to her bed and sat, as she had on her first day, straight-backed on the end. "I can't please him."

Alfred took a breath and closed the door, gingerly, feeling that the wall compromised by a pen ought not to suffer any further abuse.

"Master Bruce is not an easy man to please, and even when pleased he often refuses to show it," he said. "However, he certainly cannot be pleased by any attempt to please him."

"Then what does please him?" Meredith asked. "You and Grayson have managed it."

"He is pleased when one does what is right because it is right." Alfred tilted his head in what passed for a shrug for him.

Meredith smiled softly down at her hands. "Mhm. Except I can't do that either. Half the time what is right is what he wants, so trying to do that looks like an attempt to please. The other half of the time what is right is exactly what he doesn't want. And whatever else matters to him, he does want what he wants."

"Well," Alfred sighed, "that is certainly true. But what is it you believe to be right and to which he is so opposed?"

"He refuses to let me do what I can to protect Grayson," Meredith said, lacing her fingers together in her lap and squeezing until her knuckles went white. "I don't know what he thinks this will do. I'm in the house with him, at school with him, but they're out there, Alfred. I'm not a bodyguard; I can't do it this way. I'm a trained assassin," she said nodding toward the hole in her wall. "I don't know how to protect by association – I have to find them, and I have to take them down! Why doesn't he understand that the danger isn't over yet?"

"Well," Alfred said cautiously, "perhaps he continues to worry that the most immediate danger to master Dick is not outside these walls but now within them. And I doubt he agrees with the idea of you 'taking down' these threats you say exist."

"They do exist," she said, glaring at him. "And I don't care what Mr. Wayne agrees with; I _will_ protect Grayson the only way I know how. I did it once, and I'll do it as many times as I have to."

Alfred walked across the room, watching her carefully, and sat down beside her. Now was not the time to question what methods exactly she planned on using, but he did have other questions.

"Why?" he asked.

"I can't tell you," Meredith said, face going expressionless again.

"Why not?" Alfred asked. "I can keep a secret."

"I can't ask you to keep this secret," Meredith said. "Before I came here, I didn't expect how close you would be to them, or maybe I just didn't try to comprehend it. You're like a father to them. Maybe a grandfather." She paused. "I'm twenty-eight years old," she said, watching critically as the butler processed that information, "and I've been around a number of children in my time. Most of them are dead now. I don't know what it's like to be a father, but I know something about what it feels like to learn that a child you care about has been hurt for a reason, that it was preventable in more ways than you knew. Sometimes the reasons for tragedies make them worse."

"Miss Meredith," Alfred said, almost sounding like he was scolding her, "be that as it may there is no need for you to keep the secrets of others. You cannot hold yourself accountable for the actions of the League of Shadows. Or anyone else. "

"No," Meredith said, "but I can for mine. And I won't tell you."

Alfred could practically feel the weight sitting on her as she said those words; he knew they were her admission of guilt as much as her explanation for not sharing her secret with him. He waited for her to visibly bend under that weight, but she did not. It occurred to him that she was not at all as unaffected as she was taken for: she didn't bend further under the weight of her world, because she already lived every day bent under it. The day they watched her bend another inch would be the day she broke. He had seen it before in another, saw it every day, and he should have seen it in her sooner.

"He listens to you. Will you talk to him?" Meredith said, turning her eyes on the mangled punching bag in the middle of her floor. "I can't give him what he wants, Alfred."

"Many have despaired of the same before you, for various reasons," Alfred said, deliberately not following her gaze. "Yet, the trouble is often that people think they know what he wants when truly they do not."

Meredith shook her head. "I know what he wants. He told me. He wants me to learn to not be what I am. He wants the impossible, Alfred. I can't give him that."

Alfred closed his eyes and shook his head, not for the first time wondering how such an intelligent, accomplished man managed to be such an abysmal communicator.

"Master Bruce," he began carefully, "does not always use his words well. Please allow me to translate for you what he meant. He meant that he wants you to be honest, forthright. And because we are speaking of master Bruce, he most likely also meant that he wants you to be obedient." He sighed. "He undoubtedly meant he doesn't want you killing anyone. Or threatening them," he said, still deliberately ignoring the signs of violence in the room. "He did not mean that he wants you to not be yourself. Miss Meredith, do you for one moment actually believe that he would have let you within any distance of this manor, of master Dick, if he did not see something of yourself that he liked?"

"What did he like, Alfred?" she said, turning toward him suddenly, desperately.

"I'm afraid I couldn't say, miss Meredith," Alfred said. Then a warm smile lit his face. "But birds of a feather do, as they say, flock. Together, hm?"

Meredith smirked. "I'm not sure I should take that as a compliment."

"I'm not sure you should either," Alfred said, chuckling. "I'll talk to him," he said, rising, "but I make no guarantees. As I said, he does not, in fact, listen to me. At least not straightaway. Give him time; he's not a trusting man, and as loathe as I am to admit it that particular character flaw has saved us all grief time and time again."

Meredith nodded. "I understand. I am not very trusting myself."

"There, you see?" Alfred said, lifting an eyebrow at her. "Birds of a feather. In the meantime, perhaps you should focus less on obtaining the approval of the main man of the house and more on obtaining that of the boy next door. Achieving the one would go a long way toward achieving the other, and he is why you're here in the first place, is he not?" With that parting word, he left the young woman alone again. He would clean up the mess, and fix that wall, later. For now, he thought they could both use some time to think. He was not entirely sure what he'd promised to talk to master Bruce about, but the way this evening was going he didn't expect that talk to go much better than being threatened with death by ballpoint. He had much to think about and only a short while to do it.

He chose to wait in the cave for the masters to return, where he could simultaneously keep an eye on the security cameras of the manor. Of course, there were no such cameras anywhere in the young miss' room. That would be entirely improper, but if she so much as put a toe outside of her room, whether into the house or out the window, he would know about it. When the Batmobile sped to its parking place a short while later, he was sitting at the computer, very bored, and wishing keeping an eye on camera feeds didn't prevent him from continuing the latest volume of Artemis Fowl. The young miss had not moved from her room.

"Alfred." The elder vigilante's greeting was as laconic as always. "Anything interesting while we were away?"

"Something. But no more shenanigans or escape artistry, I'm happy to say." Alfred stood and cleared his throat. "I wonder if we might speak alone, master Bruce."

Batman pulled his cowl back. "We're done for tonight, Dick. Straight to bed."

Robin was already halfway to the showers, pulling off his domino mask as he went. "I'm not nine, Bruce."

"Straight to bed," Bruce called back. "What is it, Alfred?"

Alfred cleared his throat again. "How shall I put this, sir? I spoke to miss Meredith about . . . today, and I can't help feeling you're handling her presence here, shall we say, less delicately than one might have hoped."

Bruce sighed and took Alfred's place in the computer chair. "Spit it out, Alfred. Whatever you're trying to say, just say it."

"She has asked me to speak to you on her behalf. I'm not certain exactly what I'm meant to be saying, except that she very much wants you to understand that she cannot be whatever it is you want her to be."

Bruce simply lifted a brow at him.

"That is," Alfred said, sighing, "you cannot simply tell the girl, excuse me, young lady, that she must not be what she is." His voice and features grew suddenly stern. "Especially not when just yesterday I was telling her how her hard work to achieve skill is exactly what is rewarded in this house, not when you must have seen something in her you could respect since you brought her here. And that's what it comes to, sir: you brought her here, yet you show no sign of doing anything more than holding her prisoner. Was it all an act? A ruse to keep your enemies closer than your friends?"

"Alfred . . ." Bruce rested his elbow on the chair arm and rubbing his forehead. "She told me she would kill herself if she thought it would keep Dick safe."

"Good Lord," Alfred said, shock and pity coming across his face.

"Let me finish, Alfred. I asked her why she didn't, and she told me because she believed her life could still do more good than her death could. I liked that answer. The day I brought her here was the first and last time I heard it, but it was right for this family, for this cave and the job that comes with it. Only, the longer I have to think, the more I realize how far she has to go. Alfred, she may think she can do good with her life, that her life is still worth something, but she doesn't know how to make it worth something. I'm having trouble trusting her with the freedom to show me she can make it worth something. With Dick's life on the line, can you blame me for that?"

The shock and pity in Alfred's features degraded slowly into anger, and his next words were sharp as razors. "As a matter of fact, I can. You're missing a very important fact, master Bruce, and that – that is that she need not know how to make her life worth something. She need not show you that it is worth something. Sir, it is, quite simply, worth something. I will admit that poor young woman has a great deal to prove to us and to herself, but the worth of her life is not up for debate."

"You know that's not what I meant!" Bruce leaned forward, lifting his head to look at his butler. "I only brought her here because I agree with her, that her life is worth something."

"Sir, you'll have to forgive me, but I think that's exactly what you meant, and I begin to see miss Meredith's frustration." Alfred straightened his jacket sharply. "This is the very same philosophy I have seen you fall victim to for years, always believing that you are only worth what good you accomplish, letting every failure crush your very soul because it can only be evidence that you are worth little that is good to this world. Master Bruce, I draw the line here! I will not allow you to crush another under the weight of your personal purgatory! I have gone to great pains to see that you do not harm young master Dick with your self-flagellating philosophies, and here I find you trying them on another poor soul."

"I do what I do so that others do not suffer the pain I did!" Batman roared, surging up from his chair.

"Yes!" Alfred held his ground. "And so that you can justify your life! Your brand of cowardice, master Bruce!" His voice grew soft. "You believe that Batman is worth something, but you do not believe you are. Thomas and Martha Wayne would have wept. And here is another child with no family, with a world of darkness at her back. She strives to put it behind her, and you . . . you will not let her. You cannot, because you do not believe you have the right to put yours behind you. What you do to yourself, sir, no one, not even I, can prevent. But you must free this young woman to move on!"

Bruce gripped the armrest of the chair tightly, feeling the plastic frame caving slightly in his grip. "And what about Dick, Alfred? Hm? Are we forgetting him?"

"Forgive me, but I am not the one who brought him home a sibling without so much as a preamble."

"Alfred, she could kill him!" Bruce slammed his fist against the side of the computer's control panel. The cave rang with the sound, and the bats chittered at it. "One wrong move, trust her just a little too much, and she could kill him! I want her to move on! I want her to have a different life, to do the good she wants to do, but I can't do that at the expense of Dick's safety!"

Alfred sighed heavily; it was so like Bruce to gloss past what he was trying to tell him. Master Bruce listens to him indeed. Laughable. "You do not have to risk master Dick's safety to show the lady a little consideration, a little respect for what her life is worth and could be."

"How can you trust her so easily, Alfred? I'll admit it: I'm shocked." His voice dripped with that shock, too. "You're down here defending her. You took to her as soon as I brought her here; hell, Alfred, you barely batted an eyelash at how she is."

"Do I spend much time batting my eyelashes at the odd and abnormal, sir?" Alfred asked dryly. "I fail to see how miss Meredith looking remarkably similar to master Dick should have any bearing on my opinion of her."

"I . . ." Bruce couldn't think of an argument for that one. "I just don't see how you can trust her. I would have expected you to be the most concerned for Dick," he gestured aggressively toward the showers although they had gone silent some time ago, "and yet you're not. Why not?"

"Perhaps because I do not think she will hurt master Dick. Perhaps because I believe I see the sort of person she is, and I trust that sort of person."

Bruce sucked in a breath. "How can you be so sure? If you see something I don't, Alfred, you need to tell me."

"Master Bruce," Alfred said, sad and serious and if Bruce was not mistaken affectionate, "I see that no matter how she looks or behaves on the surface, she is not like young master Dick at all. She is like you. And I have never trusted anyone more than I have trusted you."

* * *

"I can't believe he trusted her loose in the city already. What is the idiot thinking?"

Shutting the door to the Arrow Cave behind her, Dinah was a little surprised that Oliver had spoken to her, not because he didn't often know she'd come in without needing to be told. It was just that he had been so obsessed over the past week that she didn't know how he had the attention left to notice she was there. Ever since Wayne had taken in the girl, the computers had been set to filter through the web and Starling City CCTV feeds for any hits on her. He wanted to know what she was doing, especially if she was doing it in his city. It looked like he'd finally gotten a hit. She walked smoothly up behind him where he sat in front of a four-screen computer set-up and wrapped her arms around his shoulders from behind, kissing the top of his head as she watched what he was watching. It was a video taken by phone and posted to the web. The poster claimed it showed Robin scaling Union Station in broad daylight, but one look told her better. That was not Robin. Still, she frowned as she watched the now christened Meredith Wayne climb. Even if the color scheme was right – out of date, but right – the clothes were still civilian clothes, there was no Bat-gadgetry involved, and no one was handling the police and civilian audience. This did not bear the markings of Batman's work or sanction. Dinah leaned back and massaged Oliver's shoulders gently, feeling the tension underneath her practiced fingers. In all likelihood, she was just as tense. Maybe she'd get him to return the favor later.

"He didn't," she said soothingly. "Batman clearly did not give the go-ahead for this. She was acting on her own." She looked closer at the page the video was posted on. "When was this?"

"Earlier today." Oliver Queen subconsciously leaned into Dinah's hands. "And that's hardly better. How did she get out from under him long enough to make it all the way into town and go scaling trains? He clearly does not have a handle on her."

"Well, there's not much we can do about it. Wayne's civilian life is not something we can touch."

The video cut out suddenly, then picked up again with the Batmobile driving away. The video was clearly spliced together, but the Batmobile very rarely was seen during the daylight hours. Oliver was inclined to believe that the suggestion that Batman had come to pick up "Robin" after his stunt was the truth. "It looks like there's only a matter of time, though, before she _is_ in a cape. When that happens, it will be Batman's business, not Wayne's, and Batman's business can be brought to the League."

"He won't like it," Dinah pointed out.

"No. Does it matter?"

Dinah shook her head, even though he couldn't see it. "We're not the only ones who think he's gone too far with this. Diana will side with us. Clark probably will. Others can be convinced. The question is will Batman care if the League contradicts him."

"No, he won't." Oliver turned to look Dinah in the eyes. He remembered fear in them, fear that this girl had put there. He remembered his own fear, and anger. "But again, does it matter?"

* * *

At 2 o'clock in the morning, Dick was still wide awake. It was only about an hour since Alfred and Bruce had "talked"; he'd listened to the whole thing. That was probably the definition of "escalated quickly", but that tended to be the way with those two when these kinds of conversations did happen. Neither man was really the type to beat around the bush. It was Dick's personal opinion that the overabundance of that quality in the house was the real reason life so often seemed to escalate quickly here, not the nighttime occupation of the occupants. The conversation had given Dick a lot to think about, though. He now knew for certain that Bruce was concerned about his safety, and as silly as it made him feel that he had ever questioned that at all he had questioned it. Alfred's assessment of Bruce's vigilante philosophies was a thought for another time; he wasn't sure what to make of that or even if it mattered to him. Maybe one day it would, but right now another thought was his main concern. Like Bruce, he had been wondering why Alfred and Meredith seemed to get along so well. He had felt betrayed, but now he just felt confused. It seemed incomprehensible to him that Meredith could be anything like Bruce, but the more he thought about it . . . well, the more he thought about it. That was why he was now awake at two a.m. watching the house security feeds on his laptop.

He felt silly, though. He had actually tried this several times before, but each time he would see her leave her room and then the security feeds from the hallway straight to the front entry would go on a loop of a video without her in it. Essentially, she disappeared from the cameras for two hours every morning from two to four. Of course, it was an obvious trick to anyone watching, but after this happened several times Dick had realized that Bruce must know and not care. He'd given up watching after that. Tonight, the same thing happened again. He heard the click of her door – the only noise she made at all now that she was making good on her promise not to wear noisy shoes –, he saw her step out of her room dressed in the same clothes she'd been wearing before he'd gone on patrol, and then she disappeared on the feeds.

Dick jumped silently up from his bed and knelt with his ear to the bottom of his door. Most doors in the house were made sound-proof and with no cracks for noise to escape easily through, but the bedroom doors were an exception. They were old, original doors from the house and had wide cracks at the bottom. It made the rooms a little drafty sometimes, but it also meant that a couple vigilantes and their butler would be sure to hear anyone sneaking up on them in their sleep if they made much noise. Even so, Dick had to strain to hear Meredith's feet on the hall rug. He couldn't be sure if she knew he was listening; he'd made sure to have his lights off and his curtains drawn so that his shadow wouldn't cross in front of the door, but he wasn't sure what she could have heard. He waited until he couldn't hear her any longer, which did not take long at all, then waited some more. Twenty minutes later, when he was reasonably sure she was gone and wasn't coming back early, he silently peeked out of his room, saw no one, and began to creep quietly toward the front entry.

It was funny how the quiet played tricks on a person's mind. Dick was well trained, and shadows and darkness didn't trouble him. Much. But he was a naturally loud person, and no matter how much he tried the quiet always bothered him. Absolute quiet like this made him think too much. His imagination wandered to what she could be doing, and while he'd wondered that many times before in the comfort of his room or the daylight hours the quiet turned his imaginings unnecessarily sinister. He told himself she couldn't be doing anything to Bruce or Alfred: she'd been doing this nearly since she arrived and they were both fine. He told himself she couldn't have anything to do with the strange deadly illness in Gotham: she may have put the inside camera feeds on loop, but the outside ones were working just fine. Weren't they? And there was no way, absolutely no way, she would kill him when he found her. None. Alfred trusted her. Then again, Bruce didn't.

Dick reached the stairs to the front entry and peered around, wide-eyed in the dark. There was a massive foyer between the door and the main stairway. Up the wide stairs, the ways then split, taking one to either of the two upper-level wings of the massive house. Meredith was nowhere to be seen on the stairs or in the foyer, but he could hear her. He could hear her breathing, and she was close. He frowned. Even he had learned very early on how to quiet his breathing, and he hadn't heard Meredith breathing when she'd passed his room. She knew how to be quieter than this. He stifled his wild imagination's insistence that she must know he was there and was luring him to his death and tried to determine exactly where the sound was coming from. It sounded like it was just below him. He peered down between the handrails from where he knelt on one side of the split stairs and felt his heart jump in his chest. She was staring straight up, and he froze, sure he'd been spotted. But as his training kicked in and he felt his heart slow, his breathing pick up again smoothly and quietly, he realized she hadn't seen him. She was staring up at the ceiling, but not toward the stairs, away from them at the stretch of ceiling looming high above the foyer. And whatever she was seeing it wasn't him.

Her eyes were stretched unnaturally wide and unblinking, she was huddled against the side of the main stairway, and she was as still as stone. She was terrified. And the front of her bright red hoodie was dark, blood red with tears that had long since dried in her eyes.

* * *

 **Author's Notes**

 **1\. I don't own Aussie either.**

 **2\. Yes, Alfred reads Artemis Fowl. It's canon. See Batman and Son for confirmation.**

 **3\. A longer note: I recently had a very serendipitous moment. I was reading a Batman comic, and while he was chasing Clayface Batman began musing about shapeshifters in mythology. He mentioned the Rakshasas, which naturally prompted me to look further into the term than just what Rudyard Kipling says Raksha means. It turns out (or so wiki says; my research has been superficial at best) that the Rakshasas are creatures of Hindu epic which are either shapeshifters or illusionists. They trick people who do not know what they are or are not quick enough to dispel their magic into believing they are people they are not. They sometimes become heroes, but are most often villains. And, it's often unclear whether the Rakshasas have natural forms of their own or can only copy others. I'll leave it to you guys to figure out how awesome that was to find out. The name Raksha fits Meredith far better than I even realized when I gave it to her!**

 **4\. Final note: I apologize that the time between chapter postings has grown longer than it initially was. I work, and you'll notice that the chapters are also longer than they started out. But! I promise I got to this chapter as soon as possible! In fact, I started writing it the day after I posted chapter four, because the stats showed 52 people had visited chapter one at that point and I took it as a sign I needed to start right then. :p You know. 52 universes in DC? Whatever, I'm sentimental. I hope the chapter was worth the wait.**


	6. Chapter 6 - Pledging

_Fifteen years ago._

 _It was summer in New Orleans, which meant that even at evening the beautiful parks and town squares were stifling and smelled. Jackson Square, nestled safely between a coffee shop and a towering Catholic sanctuary, smelled lightly of magic and heavily of horse manure. A tall, well-dressed man sat on one of the concrete benches with a teenage girl in a little sheath dress. They sat with the easy companionship of a loving father and his daughter. The two could not have looked less like each other._

 _The man was imposing with high cheekbones and piercing eyes. The hands folded in his lap were bony and long. Each nail stood out in the moonlight, perfect crescents. His hair was slicked back, but not over baldness, just because he preferred it so. He was orderly. He was immaculate. He was frightening. To look at him was not to notice his clothing, although it was immaculate too. All dark colors, the fabrics and folds blended together in shadow. The man himself was what stood out._

 _The girl was vibrant, playful, sweet. Her dress was a tie-dyed swirl of various pinks. Her hair fell in a braid past her shoulders, tied with a hot pink elastic. The hair wasn't braided all the way down, and the ends of it curled and twisted with natural spring. It was jet black, her skin was a deep brown, and her eyes were a deeper brown still, so dark they looked black from a distance. But she was not dark. She shone, and occasionally her sweet, slightly large nose wrinkled up above her smile when the sluggish air wafted the horse stench toward her. Supposedly, the city smelled better now than it had when she and her family had lived here. Supposedly, the hurricane had washed it clean. She was an introspective child, whether by nature or by nurture, and she passed the time with musings of whether the horses actually smelled that bad or she just wished the city still smelled as it had before the floods washed both her family and the stench away._

 _She did not believe for a moment that she was the first in the two-person company to notice the arrival of another girl across the square, but she was determined to be the first to greet her. Leaping up from the bench, she darted across the yard and hopped to a stop in front of her. This girl was her age, beautiful and exotic, beyond talented, beyond anything she ever hoped to be, and she loved her. She hadn't seen her in weeks and was desperate to smother her in a hug. But manners first. She bobbed a small bow, not drawing any more attention to herself than she already had in her mad dash._

" _You're early!" she said, smiling as though to split her face with it._

" _Raksha," Talia greeted her in return, a short greeting with a small smile to match. "So were you."_

" _Not by choice," Raksha said, laughing._

 _By this time, the man had arrived too._

" _Father," Talia greeted him with the same perfunctory manner. He merely nodded to her. Ra's al Ghul could be a very loquacious man, but only when he had something to say. Today, instead of having something to say, he had somewhere to be._

" _You'll remember what I told you," he said, looking down on the small slip of a girl he had given a demon's name. "Talia is your master now. You will follow her instruction, and you will learn from her. You will take your orders from her. Talia has been like a sister to you, but from now on, you understand, she is not. This is the next step for you." He offered her a genuine smile, a smile full of pride, hope, and promise. "I know you will make us both proud."_

 _Raksha faced her new master. It did not bother her in the least that their relationship had changed. Despite being the same age, she had always considered Talia an elder sister. This changed nothing. They would be the perfect team, and she would have no difficulty learning from her._

 _To anyone watching, it would have seemed as though a light had suddenly gone out in the center of the square. The girl still stood in her bright pink dress, she still smiled, she still hoped, but she did not shine anymore. Whatever she was or had to give belonged to Talia al Ghul now. She had no right nor need to shine. She would only serve._

" _I will make you proud, Ra's," she said. "Both of you. I promise."_

 **Pledging**

Robin dodged narrowly as his attacker threw punch after punch. He ducked away from sloppy attempts at grabs which could never have caught the young acrobat even on the worst of days. The narrow dodges and blocks weren't the result of Robin being pushed: they were the result of frustrated boredom. Robin had started treating this something like a bull fight after the first few jabs had been thrown at him, dodging as closely as possible like this was some sort of sport or a game. Which it may as well have been. Aqualad was holding back.

Robin was practically dancing within the confines of the mountain's training floor, and, unlike usual, his team leader was not dancing with him. Robin might have started manipulating the fight, pushing Aqualad to come back out of his self-guilt hole and actually fight, if he weren't preoccupied. He had been counting on sparring to help him ignore the conversation the team currently had on hold. With how Aqualad was fighting, though, his brain had had plenty of leeway to stray back to it, and now Robin was stuck thinking again. Dancing and thinking.

The team had about fifteen minutes earlier broached the subject of visiting Robin's home, Dick's home. Kid Flash had actually presented the idea, or tried to with some blunt help from Superboy. Robin had thought KF was joking, but he had been cringing like a wet dog on a Narrow's street corner as Supey had helped him get the words out. He was serious. The team was serious.

Meredith had not returned to school after her adventures in Gotham seven days ago. Dick had seen neither hide nor short, slicked hair of her since then, either. To top all the strangeness off, no further deaths had occurred in the train stations since then. The team had apparently made it their theory that Meredith was responsible for the deaths. They wanted to find out where she was hiding by searching the last place she was confirmed to have been. Robin didn't agree with their theory. All sound logic said that wasn't the deduction to make, but they were set on it and on their course of action.

Really only one person agreed with Robin that this was a bad idea: the piece of limp seaweed Robin was currently trying to spar with. Aqalad had been reluctant to disagree with his team, something he'd been stuck doing a lot of recently, but eventually he had reminded everyone of Batman's policy against metas in Gotham. At which point Artemis had interjected: "M'gann isn't a meta-human. She's a Martian."

Robin's jaw clenched at the memory as he dodged away from a slow punch that, supposedly, was aimed at his jaw. It had been just over a week now since Meredith's first day at school when Artemis had learned his civ ID, and her odd quest to defend him ever since had long ago become intrusive and all sorts of not asterous. In his frustration, Robin finally struck back at Aqualad, and the momentum of his spinning kick sent his heel square into Aqualad's chin. Superboy frowned, KF looked stunned, and Zatanna and Miss M just looked concerned as Robin awkwardly waited for Aqualad to stand back up. He knew the Atlantean would be fine, but he hadn't meant to do that. From the looks on his team's faces, they hadn't expected him to either. He resisted sighing; literally everything felt like it was out of control.

Aqualad stood, rubbing his jaw a little. "I guess you have recovered more than I expected."

Robin's frustration shoved through the awkwardness to come rushing back. "It's been the better part of a year since that happened, Kaldur. Exactly how weak do you think I am?" His right hand cut the air as he gestured sharply at the sparring floor where the message "Aqualad: Fail" was just disappearing. "This sparring match was a joke! I could have had you in seconds!"

"I just thought," Aqualad said, grey eyes widening, "that with everything that had happened in all that time you might need to ease back in slowly . . ."

"I don't need to take it slow!" Robin exploded back. Suddenly he felt a gentle touch in his mind and he turned toward the welcome distraction of Miss Martian requesting a word. So far, she had remained fairly quiet in all of the upheaval of Robin's return to the team a week ago, and Robin had drunk that in. He remembered when she had been socially awkward and emotionally bare-faced. She had come a long way since then and was now one of the most emotionally sensitive people on the team. It was odd but welcome how her presence in his mind these days had an almost immediate calming effect, just as it did now. He took a deep breath as he mentally welcomed her input and waited for her to "speak".

" _Dick, we aren't trying to intrude,"_ M'gann said, and Robin knew that she understood he was still partially off because of the earlier conversation about visiting Wayne Manor uninvited. Had she been conversing with someone else, Robin would have smiled at her ability to smoothly distract from his immediate frustration with Aqualad while addressing the real problem directly. Batman would have warned him to be careful with someone this emotionally savvy. She was getting far too good at this. _"We want to know you, and we want to know why you aren't the same as you used to be. We want to help. Can you understand that? We're a team, and we're trying to help you."_

" _I understand, but you have to know this isn't the way to do it!"_ Robin thought back to her. _"I just need some time to get my thoughts straight, and all this"_ he gestured vaguely, _"isn't helping. I'm fine, really."_

" _You don't seem fine to us,"_ M'gann said. _"You're quiet and easily agitated and distant. You're not yourself. For many of us, your positive attitude has always been something we depended on, so of course we're all concerned."_ She smiled and flicked her eyes meaningfully toward Aqualad who was still standing there uneasily. _"And a little lost. We miss you."_

Robin swallowed and corralled his thoughts into the steady, consistent thought-stream necessary for this kind of communication. He allowed himself a moment of honesty to say the first thing to his mind.

" _Honestly, I miss me too,"_ he said, smiling back at her tentatively.

Now that he said so, he realized how true it was: he missed what M'gann was calling his positive attitude. He didn't know if he'd call it that, but whatever it was he wanted it back. Unbidden, all of his training came rushing to his mind, hours and hours of being drilled in proper detective work and the scientific process. He had one of those light-bulb moments. His smile fell as he listened to his memories of Bruce reminding him to identify constants and variables. He wondered how the man had kept from letting him have it all this week for being so slow to figure this out. He had spent so much time thinking that Meredith had spun everything out of control, but he was the constant. He had to be. He had thought Meredith caused chaos, but there was chaos even when she was completely absent. Like now. His smile returned and he watched as M'gann smiled wider in response. He was the constant, and the chaos began and ended with him. Meredith was just a catalyst, and he'd let the reaction go too far. Maybe it was about time he chose to remember who he was rather than depending on Meredith to give him back his identity.

" _Honestly, I miss me too."_ Robin grinned openly. _"And 'me' doesn't always do exactly what he should."_ "Alright, fine" he said out loud and a little louder than he needed to. During his mental conversation, he had missed that the room had remained completely quiet around him. "We'll go. What's the worst Batman can do to us, right?"

Superboy frowned a little at that. Actually, they all did, taking a moment to make the jump back to the question he was now answering. Then he watched as KF, Zatanna, and Artemis flashed through satisfaction at receiving the answer they wanted to finally being appropriately concerned that they were going through with this. Miss M and Superboy shared a glance; Miss M nodded first, then Superboy. Miss M would be on board with anything that made Robin feel more like himself, and Superboy would go along with whatever she felt best. That didn't mean that they didn't look mildly concerned, though. Aqualad, who had been concerned about this from the beginning, just looked resigned. For his part, Robin felt a relief he hadn't felt in a while. A healthy fear of Batman was a certain sign of some return to normalcy, and it felt good.

"Hey, come on; be a little more whelmed!" Robin said, backing toward the exit and still grinning from ear to ear. "Covert mission behind enemy lines? It's what we do. Change into civs and meet back here in ten." He glanced at Aqualad, suddenly aware that he was giving orders, but Aqualad just smiled back at him. Robin actually felt the exchange of command start to happen then and there, over something so simple, but it felt natural. And they could think about it later.

The Mountain rang with Robin's mischievous cackles for the first time in far too long as he turned and ran for his room. No more thinking. Right now, they had a mission to prep for.

* * *

In Gotham City, the weather was dreary and the people were drearier. A week was all it had taken to take the season straight from fall to wet, icy winter. It was a year for harsh weather it seemed, but the weathermen didn't even bother pointing that out to their early morning viewers. The fact was Gothamites believed every winter would be hellish and never noticed when one was a little more hellish than usual. They saved their complaints for actual inconveniences, such as murderous clowns or the great flood of about a decade ago. To this day, those who lived through that storm could not see fit to call something a natural disaster unless it cut off power for weeks and claimed lives in every sector of the city. Yes, it did not matter how many lives were lost. What mattered to Gotham was which lives were lost. As long as a disaster didn't take the good, the bad, and the ugly alike, as long as it discriminated properly, Gotham saw it as run of the mill. They took it in stride.

" _Which, come to think of it,"_ Barbara thought as she waited to board the city train from the stop where her bus dropped off to the stop nearest her home, _"may be why Gotham puts the Joker and major natural disasters in the same category."_

She had been one to survive that storm herself, and she mostly kept quiet about nasty weather the same as everyone else who had. She kept complaints to herself and close company for different reasons, though. To her, misery was misery. There were miserably cold people coming onto the train platform who had never known the misery of that storm but who were still shivering in the cold and wet just like she had. She smiled at one such child who was pulled gently to a stop next to her by her mother's firm hand. The little girl smiled back with lightly blue lips but rosy cheeks under dirty blond locks. Barbara pantomimed rubbing her arms warm through her grey, felt coat, making a face at the cold, and the little girl made a face back.

That was the thing. When you were this young, this new to Gotham, you knew how to be companionably miserable. The real tragedy was growing up to forget how to be miserable, to forget what it felt like to not know in your bones that there was no sense being miserable because Gotham always had been and always would be like this. Barbara preferred watching children be a little miserable to watching adults be stoic as they stared down the loss of the last vestiges of warm weather.

When the train arrived and the crowd shuffled on, Barbara and the little girl were forced to part ways. Barbara was left standing at one end with no available seats, but she didn't mind. She preferred being able to see out rather than being stuck staring into the mass of the people while sitting. Despite it being old and covered in graffiti, the train still ran smoothly anyway. So, she could wrap her lithe dancer's leg around a pole to steady herself and keep her cold hands in her pockets just like the people sitting could. Eventually, the press of people would warm her up.

She watched through the window as a grey world went by. In another half hour it would start going black, and it would be permissible for her to get in touch with the you-know-who two to see if anything new was up. She sighed and wiggled her cold fingers in her coat pockets. Dick was being impossible these days, and Bruce was being strangely reclusive. After a week, the papers were starting to wonder if Bruce Wayne had a cold, and the tabloids were starting to wonder if he had a gruesomely deforming STD. Those last made her grin, but they didn't answer her question.

She was starting to wonder if whatever was eating the two of them, this new girl she was guessing, was going to press pause on Batgirl's formal introduction to the world. She had been so sure it was coming soon. Gotham already believed she existed; all they needed was proof, and she'd be a legit part of the team. And then there was _the_ team, the covert team that the Justice League supported. She had been so sure she was headed for that too. Dick had been on it for ages, and ever since she'd been allowed to be told about it he hadn't stopped rubbing it in her face. Now she wasn't sure what was going on. She told herself the new girl had nothing to do with Batgirl, but it didn't help her nerves. Something was off in the cave these days, and the fact that Batman still called her out for patrol most nights didn't quiet her curiosity.

She was really having to resist the urge to try to prove herself to Bruce. Bruce didn't do flashy. Well, actually, he did flashy very well, but he didn't do show offs. Well . . . ok, actually, he did show offs really well, too. He didn't do show offs who let their showboating make them sloppy. For instance, this Robin impersonator. Now there was a mystery. Whoever that had been was good, and even Barbara herself had been fooled until she reasoned through the facts: Dick couldn't have been at the train because he was at school when that stunt was recorded, and he likely wouldn't have been scaling trains in civs, and he wouldn't have been doing it without his gadgets even in civilian clothing because he never left home without his utility belt. It wasn't Robin, but when she'd asked Bruce he hadn't been willing to talk. Dick hadn't either, but it had seemed like he was in on it. There were times that Barbara keenly felt the difference between being a part of the team and being a part of the family, and this was one of those times. They'd probably tell her eventually, but in the meantime . . . well, she guessed she had no real reason to worry. It was just an imitation pulling off some impressive parkour and probably distracting her from the real problem.

She peered around the elderly man standing to her right to watch as the very station the imposter had scaled pulled quickly into view. It was open again after full investigation and repair of the broken window and looked as unassuming as ever. Right now, she could see the press of people waiting to get on as the train pulled to a stop at the platform. How quickly Gotham could forget deaths. It had been little more than a week since the last person had been discovered dead at this station.

The little girl and her mother from before were getting off the train at this stop. With her eidetic memory and quick eye, she picked them out immediately. The girl was smilingly pointing out of a window, and from where Barbara was she could see what it was she was looking at. It made her smile too. There was a brightly red-chested robin diving back and forth outside the station, not swinging or gliding but full on diving in brave plunges and steep climbs. It was odd flight behavior for a robin, however the Robin she knew behaved in the air, and she was tempted to take it as some sort of omen. A good one, as it was certainly impressive flying. But, then her good sense won out, and she started looking for the source of the behavior. Perhaps the bird had built a nest nearby during the repairs and now felt threatened by the resumed crowds of people, although she didn't see where it could have built one. She watched the bird make deeper and deeper dives and not climb quite as high as before with each dive. The train doors shut, and they began to pull away from the station.

In the few seconds it took for the train to get up to speed, the bird had lost several feet in altitude. She continued to watch as the train threaded into the turn around the tower, and the robin climbed back up the several feet, seemed to stall in the air, and then fell backward into a plunge. She huffed a laugh and waited, grinning, for it to pull up. The train pulled into the straight-away. Barbara watched as the robin hit the ground with such force that it was pulverized on impact. She sucked in a shocked breath as a building interrupted her view. That had gone from confusing behavior to concerning behavior in an instant, and her gut told her something was wrong. That was no omen. And the two people who knew what was going on were going to have to start talking. As she pulled out her phone to text Dick, she briefly hoped that the little girl had not been watching as the robin plunged to its death.

* * *

Dick and his team were about ten feet into the forest surrounding Wayne Manor. A large expanse of yard stood between the tree-line and the house. He knew all the camera angles and distance of visibility, and he wanted the team completely hidden while he ran over their instructions. They were in civs, but that wasn't going to keep him from treating this like a real mission.

"Ok, we've been over security cameras and possible entrances." He waited a moment while the team nodded. Wally took a moment to roll his eyes skyward and make sure he remembered before nodding a half-beat behind everyone else. Dick resisted the urge to smirk at him. It didn't seem like much of a difference in reaction time to the rest of the team, but if you considered how fast Wally could both move and think . . . well, then it was basically the equivalent of him pulling out notecards. "And we know that Wally and M'gann are checking hallways for us to make sure everything's clear once I hack the security system. Wally knows the house better than you, M'gann, so-"

"Follow him," M'gann cut in. "Got it."

"I mean, you'll kind of have to follow me," Wally said. "I'm sort of that fast."

Dick ignored that comment and just nodded. "Zatanna, Kaldur, Artemis, Connor, and Zee are with me."

"Aaaaas with you as they can be," Wally cut in again. "You're going to be on my back, so, again. Kind of fast."

"You still haven't explained why we aren't doing anything, though," Zatanna objected. "We're just following you around?"

"Honestly, guys," Dick said, shrugging, "having all of us here is overkill. Most of us don't have the kind of skills it takes to break into _The Batman's_ home." He stressed the name. "With me hacking into the security systems, it takes a minute at most to be discovered, twenty-five seconds at least, completely depending on whether or not he's fiddled with the system without my knowledge recently which is totally possible considering the amount of time I've spent sulking . . ." Robin cut off his nervous rambling and blinked. "Ok, it takes twenty-five seconds for the system to alert him that there was a perimeter breach. I'd give it a minute at best before there's a response. If I can get in and hack the main system in under twenty-five seconds, I can stall the system figuring out it was breached and alerting him. Beyond that, the only thing we can do is try to get as far into the house as possible before the response arrives, which means I'm hacking as quickly as possible and Miss M and KF are helping us stay invisible. Zatanna obviously can do anything she thinks is helpful, but really, Kaldur, Connor, and Artemis, you guys are muscle and the best you can do is hang around me and hope to protect the hacker when the response arrives." Dick frowned. His team was looking at him uneasily. "What?"

While the others were struggling to put it to words, Connor barreled in bluntly. "This isn't an actual mission. No one's going to attack us."

Dick grinned, "Wanna bet on that, Supey? I'm good for fifty bucks. It's what I have left of my allowance from last month. I don't think I'm going to be getting my allowance this month if you know what I mean." He laughed when Connor just blinked uncomprehendingly. "I'm treating this like a real mission because it is one. We're breaking into his house. I mean, when he sees it's us we'll probably get off with a severe talking to and really not turbing grounding. And if we make it far enough into the house, odds are better you get to stay long enough to accomplish something. If we get caught before we make it in, though, he'll just keep us out. And we still get grounded. Besides, I'm not going to assume that he won't respond aggressively. That could be a mistake. He's also not the only one in the house. Fort Knox, guys. Troy. We aren't getting in here easily, and we may have to fight for our right to be there." Never mind that they had no right to be there. "So get traught." Artemis grinned, and he nodded to her. "We clear?" He waited for the team to nod again. "Good."

"I have one question, though," Kaldur said. "Do you feel this plan will actually succeed?"

Dick laughed. "Maybe. This is a training exercise I run a lot, and I usually do it without help. But I also usually do it with permission." He grinned. "Usually. And I fail pretty often. Most of the time, actually. So that's why we're staying traught. On my count guys: ready, set," he waited as everyone moved into their approach positions, turning on his glove computer, which he had worn even in civvies, so that it would be as ready as possible to hack immediately. Everyone moved away from him except Wally, who bent down and let Dick climb on his back. "And go."

He braced himself behind Wally's back as the two sped toward their target entrance, a service door that led to the breakers and private generators. None of the entrances to Wayne Manor allowed any possibility of hacking the entire system from them, a design feature that Dick himself had helped refine, so they needed to go straight in and to the nearest place that would allow a full-blown security hack. It was an obvious approach, and Dick had used it on countless occasions in training. But that didn't make it any less the best one, and his team was already running to catch up, trusting that he'd have this door open by the time they got there.

Connecting his wrist computer to the lock on the door without getting off Wally's back, he worked fast and was rewarded with an open entry. But he knew it wasn't fast enough. He needed to get into the main system in under the twenty-five second time limit. Dick didn't wait to be a gentleman and hold the door for the others. Wally sped off; they were the first ones through the door. They were lucky, too. Dick remembered he had left his personal computer in the sitting room with the outside wall completely made of windows and the bust of Thomas Wayne. He liked to do his homework there sometimes. All the natural light and space were nice. It was on the upper floor and it provided no cover, but it was closer than any other place he could hack. The rest of the team knew where Dick and Wally were headed and followed as quickly as they could. As soon as Dick was deposited by his laptop, the team would split up as discussed.

Suddenly, Wally seemed to spin out of control. Dick clung to his back for what felt like dear life, fighting against the titanic pull of the generated centrifugal force. He hadn't been able to keep track of exactly where Wally was at any point, so he had to look around and get his bearings. He frowned down at his ride: they were right beside the closest door to the sitting room, but Wally was pressed as closely to the wall as he could get, franticly shaking his head. Dick immediately caught on and peeked carefully around the doorframe to confirm – yep, Bruce was in there, casually doing his civilian work from home as he had been for the past week. They weren't so lucky, then.

The rest of the team made it to them at that point. Wally silently waved his arms and shook his head no at them, Dick pantomiming shushing. He felt M'gann link them up. Oops. He probably should have asked her to do that before he officially said the mission was go. Aqualad would have.

" _He's in there, guys! Plan B!"_ Dick thought to the team. _"We've got like no seconds before he figures out the door's been hacked!"_

" _I thought we still had time!"_ Artemis thought at the same time that a slightly panicked Kaldur thought, _"What is Plan B?"_ Another oops. They should have already discussed Plan B.

" _Plan B is hide! I didn't get to hack the system, so we have no time! None!"_ Dick shrunk back against Wally as he heard a small, incessant beep from what he knew was Bruce's wristwatch and movement as the man stood up. _"No seconds!"_ He turned back to the team to tell them again to be quiet because he'd heard muttering, but it was Zatanna. He read her lips, hoping for a miracle.

" – su elbisivni!" was what he caught from her.

He blinked as every member of the team, besides M'gann who already was, went invisible. _"Run!"_ he thought to them. He took off down the hallway, the rest of the team on his heels. They managed to clear the doorway before Bruce stepped out into the hall, but an invisibility spell didn't cover their footfall. Dick didn't need eyes in the back of his head to know Bruce was turning their way. Dick's own room was another turn down this hall, so he aimed for it. If they weren't fast, though, Bruce would see his door open for no apparent reason. And they weren't fast, at least not fast enough. But miracle of all miracles, the room before his was open.

" _In the open room!"_ he thought to them. He darted in and stood aside for his invisible team to file through. As Bruce jogged past, he looked into the room, and Dick knew that he knew they were there. But, Bruce kept going. Which meant he also knew who they were and was playing by the usual rules. Dick rolled his eyes. Bruce was probably getting a kick out of holding the coals under them, but it meant the mission wasn't over yet. As long as Bruce had no hard proof that the rest of the team had been there, Dick would get that lecture and grounding, but that would be it. He and his guardian had played this breaking-and-entering game countless times for training, and Bruce was always fair. First time for everything, though . . . so best to get what they had come for and go.

"You can go ahead and release the spell, Zee," Dick said, shutting the door. "There are no cameras in these bedrooms."

"Um," Zatanna said as the team reappeared, "this . . . isn't your room, is it?"

"No, mine's next door," he said, turning and seeing that she was staring at something spread all over the bed: what looked to be a giant mess of make-up. "This is Meredith's room. Actually."

"Perfect," Artemis said. "This is as good a place as any to start, right?" She frowned at the mess on the bed, which, Dick saw now that he looked closer, was actually very organized. There was just a lot of it. "Who needs this much make-up anyway?"

"Nobody really needs that much." The team's heads collectively swung toward the door to the room's connecting bathroom. It sounded like Dick was throwing his voice, but, of course, it was just Meredith herself, arms folded but looking very amused. "I left the door open for you. You got lucky and I was watching the video feeds when you broke in. You're welcome."

"Where have you been?" Dick blurted out first, shocking himself with the realization that he had actually been concerned. Then he frowned and took a closer look at her. " . . . You're different."

"Taller, to be specific," she said, smiling mirthlessly. "Don't worry, you'll catch up quickly enough. I wasn't born to be tall."

"Oh, the injections!" Wally said. The team turned toward him in surprise. He shrugged. "What? I do know some things."

Artemis crossed her arms. "I'm not following."

"Uh," Wally said, "well, they were artificially keeping her young, right? But I doubt Batman has been doing that. It makes sense that she'd start growing again."

"But not this fast," Dick said, eyes narrowing at her. "You're at least two inches taller."

Meredith shrugged. "Trying to artificially offset the youth. It's complicated, and I don't feel like going into it. Back to the matter at hand, plan on explaining why you're breaking into your own house, Grayson?"

Dick opened his mouth to answer, then changed his mind. "When you tell me where you've been."

Meredith blinked. She actually felt a little uncomfortable. Grayson had spent days working hard to pretend she didn't exist; it was odd being the focus of his attention. "I've been here."

"Here," Dick said, frowning.

"Yep. Here." She gestured around her room. Dick took a moment to look around and noted that a lot of unexpected things were in here: a punching bag, a shoe rack that was actually full of six different pairs of shoes, a small collection of bags from clothing outlets, and a major setup in the corner that he was officially dubbing the glorified karaoke machine. "Well," she elaborated further, "here and in the rec room and in the study and, frankly, any place you weren't." Dick looked back at her at that. "So. Why are you here?"

"In short," Dick said, glancing back at his team, "looking for you."

"You honestly expect us to believe that you've managed to hide in this house from everyone for a week?" Artemis said, stepping forward, her grey eyes trained on Meredith. "Nice to see you wearing your own clothes, by the way."

"Mr. Wayne and Alfred know I've been here. And thanks, it's an experiment," Meredith replied, grinning. "Nice to see you wearing yours. You look sort of out of place in a skirt."

It was true, Dick noted now that he wasn't so focused on the height difference; she was wearing different clothes. In fact, it looked like she'd made a complete one-eighty. Again. She was now wearing a light blue t-shirt material shift dress. Her hair and make-up were not done although her eyes were still what he knew to be fake blue. It was clear that she hadn't wrapped her chest either. It was somehow still a bit like looking at himself in a dress, and that was awkward. He had to admit, though, that it didn't look bad on her, and she didn't behave awkwardly in it. It looked natural, just tomboyish.

"Grounded for skipping school?" Dick asked.

"Hm?"

"Is that why you've been stuck hidden away in here?"

"Oh." Meredith stepped carefully around the team, but mostly Artemis, to sit on the end of her bed. "Sort of, but not really. Self-imposed grounding, let's say. And then there was the not turbing-ness of growing again for the first time in . . ." she paused to think, "fifteen years? Not pretty. And then I just felt like it was a good time for me to have some me time. Let's say."

Dick blinked at her. He rolled his eyes upward and made a face at the ceiling. "What?"

Meredith laughed his laugh. "I'm not going to explain it, let's say. So are you going to leave or just keep waiting around until Mr. Wayne gets tired of looking the other way?"

"We're staying," Artemis interjected. "We still have questions."

"Asterous," Meredith said, shrugging happily. "So long as you don't mind getting caught. Ask away." She leaned backward to pull a bag toward her, unzipped it, and began rifling through what was apparently nail polishes. Dick watched her curiously as did most of the rest of the team, Wally being the exception. They'd finally begun to notice that things weren't adding up in small ways. Wally in his impatience had flat out gone over to the glorified karaoke machine to check it out, while the others were trying to fit together, for starters, what the copycat would need with nail polish. Artemis alone was unfazed, steadfast in her stubborn suspicion.

"Why did you pull that stunt in Gotham last week?" Artemis asked, charging ahead with her interrogation.

Meredith shrugged, pulling out a bottle of deep purple and holding it against her dress before putting it back.

"Why would you spend an entire week going out of your way to avoid Dick?" Artemis asked, trying again.

Meredith shrugged, this time holding a bottle of magenta to her dress and smiling softly to herself.

Artemis let out her breath slowly and tried not to growl in frustration. "What's going on with the train death incidents?"

Meredith looked up sharply at that. "No idea, why? Do you know something? If Mr. Wayne knows anything, he's not telling me, and I haven't heard anything in the news."

Dick answered from where he had gone over to stop Wally from breaking anything. "We don't know anything. The team thinks the incidents stopped because you were the killer." He shrugged off Artemis' infuriated look. "Look, I always said that was a dumb theory. We would have known if it had been her. If anything, her stunt scared off the real killer, and that's why nothing has happened all week."

Meredith nodded, her happy amusement having been instantly turned to consideration. "That could be, and I'd be happy if that were the case except that then the killer would still be at large and not leaving us any clues to follow."

"So you'd rather people were dying so you could have 'clues'?" Artemis said, wheeling on her again.

"Obviously not," Meredith said at the same time that Dick said, "She's right, though." Both Artemis and Meredith turned to him, not sure to whom he was referring.

"Meredith's right," Dick said, shrugging. "We can't find the killer like this, and it's a shame."

"I guess," Artemis admitted. She turned back to Meredith who was now painting her nails with the magenta polish. "But that doesn't make it obvious that you wouldn't rather people were dying so you could catch your guy, no."

Meredith paused in the act of pulling the polish brush from the bottle and reinserted it, keeping the brush wet while she seemed to wrestle with her thoughts. Several seconds later, she sighed and returned to her nail painting. "If you want to do your nails, you can borrow my stuff. I don't care. Just don't make a mess."

It took M'gann and Zatanna a moment to realize that Meredith's face was turned slightly in their direction and that she was talking to them. The two looked at each other confusedly, not sure what that invitation was supposed to mean.

"Or, I mean, when I'm done I could do them for you. I'm pretty decent at nail art." She held up a finished hand to demonstrate, still not quite looking at the two girls. "Or not. Just thought you were kind of sitting there with nothing to do."

M'gann finally sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed, folding her hands in her lap reservedly. "Well . . . I've never actually painted my nails . . ." Zatanna stepped closer to the bed almost like support for the Martian, but she didn't sit down.

"Really?" Meredith said unconcernedly, shoving the bag of polish toward M'gann with a splayed hand to preserve her paint job. "I thought you were on a cheerleading squad. Don't they do that kind of stuff? Or is that stereotyping?" She looked up from doing her last nail and smiled.

"Well, I never really had the time –", M'gann paused in the middle of a return smile. "How did you know I was a cheerleader?"

"Well," Meredith said, leaning over to look in the polish bag again, "I know a lot of things about all of you. Sorry if that bothers you. I've thought about it, and I thought it would just be best to be open about what I know rather than hide that I know things. I'm not sure, but I think that color," she nodded at very light pastel pink, "might go well with either of your skin colors. Probably wouldn't match your uniform, though, if that bothers you."

M'gann picked up the bottle of pink polish to buy time to consider how she felt about Meredith's admission, while Zatanna finally sat down next to her and put her hand on M'gann's shoulder.

"You know about all of us? Personal things?" Zatanna asked.

Meredith just nodded, blowing on her nails and picking up a bottle of topcoat.

"How personal?" Artemis growled, placing a hand on the bed and leaning into Meredith's face.

Meredith's lips thinned into a harsh line and her eyes took a hard edge. She went stock still, and Artemis leaned back a fraction without noticing. "Fairly personal," Meredith said curtly after a moment. "I realize that everyone has things they'd rather people didn't know, some more than others. If there's something you don't want me to know," she paused, "assume I know it."

Artemis' hand shook briefly. "What gives you the right?" she said, struggling not to sound breathless.

"Absolutely nothing," Meredith replied with a small shake of her head. "But I also can't help what I know. And for what it's worth, I don't think badly of you because of what I know." Blue eyes looked steadily into grey. "You did what I should have done. You got out sooner rather than later. Weaker people would make excuses, say that you had opportunities that I didn't, but the fact is I had opportunities I didn't take. For reasons I won't go into. I'm not asking you to like me, Miss Crock, but I like you. And I can tell you right now that you need to get used to us butting heads, because that's what happens when people are too alike to function."

Artemis didn't need to try not to be breathless this time, her anger back in full force. "I don't have to get used to anything. You're grounded, remember? From civilian life and hero work, and you are never going to get anywhere near this team. We worked hard to get here, to be trusted, and you are not trustworthy!"

Meredith just blinked. "Self-imposed grounding, remember? And it's not hero work. A hero is someone like Superman. The proper term here is vigilante, and I will. No matter how hard I have to work to get to you, I will. The fact is that you don't have to-" she cut short. She had been about to say that Artemis didn't have to trust her. She'd said that sort of thing a lot recently, but she'd had time to think over the past week of "me time". Alfred had suggested she stop trying so hard to win Batman's approval and try to earn Grayson's. Which had started her thinking about what Grayson's teammates had that she didn't. His trust was definitely one of those things, and it had seemed so obvious once she realized that. She had been on a team once, too, and they had trusted each other, whatever other dysfunctions there were. She sighed. "The fact is you don't have to like it. But I will show you that you can trust me."

Artemis turned in a fury and headed straight for the door. She came to a halt halfway there, though, when she remembered why they were stuck in this room. With a growl, she turned and stalked into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her.

Meredith finally relaxed out of her stiff posture, sighing.

"You think Superman is a hero?"

She looked up again in surprise at Connor's sudden question. "I . . . well, yeah," she said, blushing lightly. "I'm . . . sort of a fan."

Connor lifted an eyebrow at that, just a hint of a smile at the edge of his mouth. "He's not everything people think he is. But I'm kind of a fan too."

"Good to know," Meredith said, laughing in embarrassment. "Superman fans tend to be good people, in my experience. Well," she grimaced, "myself aside."

Connor frowned at that but winced when Wally turned on the machinery in the corner and music blasted out. He, and Dick and Wally, those two being right next to it, clapped their hands over their ears as a woman sang out, mellow but loud: "-like a freedomfighter, guns ain't just for boys. I heard-". Wally pushed a button, trying to turn it off, and the song changed to acoustic guitar. He pushed a few more and managed to switch it to something which lit up the screen of the nearby connected laptop and began a short sample of piano music. The tune was familiar to Dick, but he couldn't place it. Finally, the sound clicked off.

The boys looked back to the bed where Meredith had finally managed to get the remote and turn it off. It had taken her a while, because of her wet nails. Everyone was silent for a moment, Connor rubbing his ears slightly.

"You like guns, then?" Dick finally asked.

"Not my weapon of choice," Meredith said warily, not sure if that was a serious question. "Besides, those lyrics only make sense if you convince yourself they do. Mostly I just like the sound."

"Do you normally play music that loud?" Connor asked sullenly.

Meredith smiled. "No, only when there's not anyone around to be bothered, and I'm in the bathroom doing something." Connor just blinked at her. "It's a big bathroom."

The room fell back into silence.

"Um," M'gann ventured holding up the bottle of polish from earlier, "Could you help with this?"

Sighing, but smiling, Meredith nodded and scooted closer to M'gann, unscrewing the lid on the bottle. "You could probably do this flawlessly by yourself with your powers, though, once you see how it's done. Kind of jealous."

"Speaking of her powers," Artemis said. She had come back out of the bathroom to find out what all the noise was. "You could solve all these trust issues pretty quickly, now that I think of it."

"No," Meredith replied, putting the first coat on M'gann's left-hand nails. "There's a very large difference between knowing facts about someone and reading their mind. It's not an even trade of information, and I'm not sure I'd volunteer for it even if it were." She tilted her head a little, recognizing the sound of Grayson laughing softly to himself and wondering at it.

"Wait, how is it not a fair trade?" Artemis said. "You know things all the way back to my childhood, apparently."

Meredith started to answer, but stopped when M'gann did instead. "It's actually not, Artemis." She smiled sheepishly at her teammate. "She may know things about us, but she doesn't necessarily know how we feel about them or how these things look to us when we remember them in the privacy of our own heads. Reading her mind would show me those kinds of things, not only facts but memories and feelings. Knowing those things is a lot worse than knowing someone's history."

"I propose this," Kaldur said, surprising everyone with the reminder of his presence. He'd been quietly disapproving of this mission all along, and it had been easy to forget he was there. "The League had a hearing for you during which, unknown to everyone else, Batman made his final judgments on whether or not to accept your continued presence and welcome you into his home. You know what I think about you being here, and I hope that you will not prove me a fool for thinking this way. However, the majority of my team are still wary of you for reasons I am forced to admit are not wrong." Aqualad paused to look from Connor to Dick to Wally, smiling softly. "In the beginning, this team made its own decisions. When we were told we could not put our skills to use, we did anyway. This team was begun by three stubborn people and solidified by four. It has grown since then, but I like to think," he turned back to Meredith, "that even today we stand by our own convictions, that the direction of the League is only that: direction from which we learn and grow but which does not stop us from doing what we believe to be right. I am proposing that we make our own decision as a team. Apart from the League or from Batman." He looked at Artemis.

She narrowed her eyes, thinking, and nodded. "Exactly what I want," she said.

"We should have our own hearing," Dick said, nodding as well. "Decide for ourselves what we think and what facts are important to us. She still won't be let in until Batman and the League approve it, but she also definitely wouldn't be let in without our approval." He grinned. "We hold veto power."

"I like that idea," Zatanna said, gaze flicking between Dick and Meredith in critical consideration. "I think we should have a say."

"That's what I've been saying!" Artemis said, throwing her hands up and rolling her eyes.

"Then you agree that we should make a decision as a team and that our decision will stand once made?" Aqualad asked Artemis. She paused at that a moment.

"Yes," she finally said, not looking happy about it but agreeing all the same. "Once we all have our say."

"Do I get a say?" Meredith asked, keeping her face carefully neutral and distracting herself by handing the bottle of pink polish back to M'gann along with the bottle of topcoat.

Artemis scoffed. "In whether or not you join the team? No."

"In what?" Kaldur asked more politely.

"I mean can I have a chance to make a condition or defend myself?" Meredith said.

"Why should you get to make a condition?" Artemis shot in. "The idea is that we," she gestured to each team member, "get to satisfy our concerns, not coddle you in yours."

Kaldur nodded regretfully. "Yes, I think that is right. However, if you have a concern, I see no reason why we should not hear it and take it into consideration in questioning you, and I see no reason why you shouldn't be allowed to address us at the end. That is the way it worked in your League hearing."

Meredith frowned. "That makes sense . . . I'm just concerned that this could go on forever. There are a lot of you, and I'm sure you have a lot of questions. And maybe it's not my right to ask that I not be subjected to hours of endless questioning, but-"

"No, I agree," Dick interrupted. "We should put a cap on the number of questions we can ask."

Meredith nodded slowly; it was hard to tell if he was being nicer than usual or was just in a hurry. Kaldur nodded in turn.

"That makes sense to me too," Kaldur said. "What do you suggest, Richard?"

"I think maybe-" Dick began, but then stalled in the middle of his thought. "Um, you can call me Dick. Richard is a little stuffy."

Kaldur blinked. "Sorry. Dick, then."

"I was thinking maybe two questions each," Dick said. "It doesn't sound like much, but there are seven of us so it comes out to fourteen questions. We could do it in turns and have the option to either use both questions on our turn or just one and ask the second after the first round of questions."

"That way we have less chance of being dissatisfied with how we have used our questions," Kaldur said, nodding. "I agree. Is everyone else in agreement?" He waited while the others thought it through and nodded. Surprisingly, Connor was the last to nod, while Artemis agreed right away. He could only assume that she already felt confident in what she wanted to ask. "Meredith, does that satisfy your concern?"

"Would it matter if it didn't?" Meredith asked, but she was smiling a little when she said it.

Kaldur smiled. "Yes. Although it might not change our minds."

"It's fine," she replied, laughing softly. "Fire away! Who's first?"

Kaldur turned back to Dick, the rest of the team following suit. Dick said nothing, not sure if they were suggesting he should decide who would go first or if they were asking him to go first, but after a moment's thought he decided he didn't know yet what he wanted to ask. "Kaldur should go first. He's the one who actually agrees with her joining us right now. Let's start with some friendly fire."

Meredith caught the meaningful look he sent her way along with that wording, and it helped answer her questions about his behavior. Maybe he was being a little fairer today, but that didn't mean he was being nice. She still only had one true ally on the team. That knowledge helped galvanize her for yet another round of probing questions.

"Very well," Kaldur said. "I will start with something I have been wondering. Would you describe your family for us?"

Meredith paused the span of a breath before speaking. "You mean the one I was born into?"

The sound of people shifting in surprise accompanied that response. "Yes, I mean your parents and siblings, if you had them," Kaldur clarified.

"I had one," Meredith said, nodding. Kaldur'ahm wasn't pushing her about her odd question, but she didn't think for a moment he wasn't thinking on it just like the rest of them. "I don't remember my family well. I was nine when they died." She stopped herself from looking at Dick as she said that, the realization of what she had just implied about his memory of his family derailing her thoughts for a moment. "I mean that . . . well, I wish I could remember them better. I know that both of my parents worked very hard and were rarely home. We weren't rich, though. My brother was four, I think, when he died. I think we all had the same color hair, but I remember everyone saying that I looked the most like my dad. That's . . ."she thought for a moment, then shook her head. Her loose curls swung a little, and she brushed her fingers through them, unused to the movement. "That's pretty much all I remember."

Kaldur nodded. "I will pass on my second question for now."

"M'gann's next," Dick said, sitting down in the chair in front of the glorified karaoke machine while Wally sat on the floor. Dick was settling into detective mode now, watching Meredith closely. If he had approached her this calmly from the beginning, he might have known a lot more about her by now; it was clear there was more to find out from her actions than from her words. He'd have to swallow his pride and ask Bruce later. There was no way he hadn't already been watching her this closely from the get-go.

M'gann was too focused on her nails, the polish brush levitating over her right hand, and didn't hear Dick calling her turn. Zatanna nudged her, "It's your turn to ask a question."

"Oh," M'gann said, freezing her polish brush in midair. "Sorry. Um-"

"You'll want to put the brush back in the bottle while you're not using it," Meredith interrupted. "So the polish doesn't dry on it and ruin the brush."

"Oh!" M'gann said again. "Sorry!" She immediately put the top back on the polish bottle, then took a breath while she thought. "Um, I guess for me the most important thing is the safety of my friends . . . and especially Dick, of course. But I'm not very good at asking good questions, since I can usually just . . ." She stopped to smile apologetically. "So could you maybe just tell me, what do you think is the most dangerous thing about you?"

Meredith openly grinned at that one. "Still finding ways to pick my brain. Let me think." She looked down at her hands, and the room waited several minutes while she did just that. M'gann returned to painting her nails while she waited. Wally fidgeted. Artemis tried not to strangle something. Dick tried to think about what he wanted to ask while he had the opportunity and kept his eyes trained on Meredith. She never moved a muscle or even blinked until she was ready to answer. Then, she only moved to blink.

"I think," Meredith said finally, choosing her words carefully, "that the most dangerous thing about me is my upbringing. And I don't mean that I have been well trained in killing. I mean the things that I haven't been well trained in. I haven't been well trained in how to be a good person, I think. I tried to teach myself a little. I used to squirrel away little things that reminded me of people I looked up to and paste them on my wall. And I tried to learn from those people. But the problem I eventually came up against was that even though I thought I could tell a good person among bad people, I didn't always know what it was that made them good." She paused again. "I think that the most dangerous thing about me is that I don't always know what's good. I just do what I think is good. And sometimes I'm very, very wrong."

Artemis frowned. "So in short you're admitting that you're not dependable."

"I think in short she's admitting she's human, Artemis; wait your turn," Dick said sharply. Artemis' stubbornness had become wearying over the last week. Dick's response shut her up, but she looked embarrassed and embarrassment and Artemis weren't a good mix.

M'gann spoke up quickly to try to redirect the tension. "I want to use my second question now. Maybe if you told us what you think is the best thing about you," she smiled encouragingly, "we could decide better for ourselves if we think you can tell what's good or not."

Meredith smiled, but behind the smile she was gritting her teeth. "That one is easy. I'm loyal. But again that's . . . really only a good thing when you're being loyal to good people."

"So who are you loyal to right now?" Zatanna said. Dick frowned, but just let her have the next question. He was too busy processing Meredith's pained expression to ask that Zatanna wait to be told it was her turn. That, and he and Zee were a little awkward right now. Best to say nothing.

Meredith laughed again, all traces of her reaction to the previous question gone. "You had to be the one to ask that question. Robin. Unquestioningly."

"Because you were trained to care about him or because you just do?" Zatanna pressed, leaning forward around M'gann to get a better view of the girl she was questioning.

"I wasn't trained to care about him," Meredith said, pulling a face. "But I get what you're asking, and . . . I'm not sure. I'm really not. There are a lot of reasons that I . . ." she stopped to think. Then she shook her head. "There are a lot of reasons that I care about what happens to him and about him. Some of them do feel like they could be a result of my training. Others definitely aren't. So I don't really know how to answer your question; I'm sorry."

"That's two questions," Dick said, although it didn't look like Zatanna had been about to ask a third. That line of questioning made him uncomfortable and not just because his girlfriend as his "sister" were talking about him like he wasn't there. "Connor, your turn."

Connor nodded. "I want to know why you like Superman. And I don't have another question." He waited silently and still while Meredith tried to get her thoughts together. Eventually, he frowned; for some reason his question had set her heart racing, and he listened as she forcefully brought it back down to a normal pace. Because he was listening so closely to her heartbeat, though, he clearly heard as Bruce Wayne and someone else, probably this other inhabitant they'd been warned about before the mission, came back down the hall toward the room. "We have company."

It took a moment for the team to figure out what he meant by that non-sequitur. Meredith, on the other hand, knew immediately what he meant and leapt for her window. It came open smoothly, making Dick wonder briefly if she had spent time making sure it would.

"I'd suggest we continue this later unless Miss Dark Magic over there can keep up an invisibility spell on all of you for significant lengths of time," Meredith said, her dress blowing a little in the cold draft from the open window. Dick noticed that she didn't shiver.

"I don't practice . . ." Zatanna frowned. "Whatever. No, I can't."

"Then you should go." Meredith looked at first to Kaldur'ahm, but then she looked to Grayson. It seemed like he was calling the shots at least while the team was in his home. "I already took the liberty of disabling the perimeter cameras in this area, so you should be fine to get to the woods from here."

Dick just nodded, already gone silent in case Bruce and Alfred should hear. He guessed it shouldn't surprise him that she could do that. He looked to Kaldur and jerked his head toward the window. Kaldur, too, just nodded before immediately making his way through the window, hitting the ground running for the tree-line. Dick tapped his temple with a finger, looking pointedly at M'gann, and she linked everyone up before going through the window herself. One by one the rest of the team followed. Dick, however, paused a moment at the window, staring at Meredith.

She frowned a little staring back at him in confusion. Then, she felt the small, polite prod at her mind. She stiffened, but Grayson nodded encouragingly to her. He wanted her to let the Martian in. She adamantly did not want to and, honestly, felt more than a little angry that he would ask this after she had already discussed the idea of letting Miss Martian into her mind. But she also knew what was at stake, and looking steadily at Grayson she knew he did too. He didn't seem at all agitated knowing that he was standing in the wide open waiting for Mr. Wayne and Alfred to find him. Whatever it was he wanted from her, it was important enough to him that he would risk being caught. She took a deep breath and slowly forced her mind into acceptance of M'gann's facilitated communication. She couldn't help blinking as Grayson's voice blossomed directly into her thoughts.

" _I want you to meet us here."_ An image of a non-descript pizza stop became clear to her, directly from Grayson's memory. _"Around an hour from now; it'll be dark by then."_

Meredith just nodded, not trusting herself to try to respond with her own thoughts. She didn't worry that she'd give anything of herself or her past away – her walls around all of that may as well have been built ten feet thick -, but there was no escaping how this kind of connection felt. Voices sounded . . . different like this. Closer, clearer. Her chest tightened as she fought against her memories. In this voice, Grayson sounded like himself, not like the sum of the vibrations his vocal chords could produce but the sum of his life. It bit at her. It was still so young and small. So many moments were preserved in this voice, and it cut her to the core how many of them she recognized, had no right to recognize, wished to god she didn't recognize.

When a knock at her door finally startled her from her thoughts, Grayson and the others were already long gone.

* * *

Bruce Wayne had to smile when the young woman finally answered his knock. For one thing, his partner and his team were obviously no longer there. Invisibility spells or no, he was Batman, and he could tell these things. For another thing, the room was a mess. He had been heavily involved in what Meredith was calling her "me time". He had trained with her, eaten his meals with her, and even taken her on a tour of the cave – just once, and he'd had the sharpest of eyes on her the whole time. However, he'd not come anywhere near her room in the last week, or in fact ever. Much of what he had done this week with Meredith had been at Alfred's advising, and staying away from her room was too. He wasn't sure if she was naturally a messy person or if, as with so many things she was doing right now, she was just rebelling against her comfort zone, but it was good to see her making the room her own in a way that didn't involve punctured walls and disemboweled punching bags.

Alfred had tried to keep that incident from him, but he'd discovered it quickly. He'd kept his knowledge quiet, though, opting to watch the young woman closely rather than confront her. What he saw both reassured and worried him. She had been managing herself very well since that explosively rebellious school day, but he had to wonder how much or how little it would take to tip the balance again. For now, though, . . . he looked over the room. The bedspread was littered with a mixture of high end nail polishes and the cheapest available, the shoe rack likewise displaying a mix of all price ranges and styles and the desk in the back corner covered in all manner of sound equipment. Buying that equipment had been specifically his idea when during her tour of the cave Meredith had specifically asked if it were possible to mix music on the computer. He'd wanted to cut that thought off at the pass as definitively as possible. It had also kept her off of the piano, which she had begun playing almost ceaselessly since she discovered it. Looking at the haphazard life she was making for herself here, he had to admit that Alfred was right about taking things more slowly in becoming used to each other and expecting a little less of his new charge. The balance of her sanity could wait to be tested, and he didn't intend to be the one to test it.

"Just checking in," Bruce said. "I thought I heard something."

"That was just my music. Sorry, I forgot the volume I'd left it on," Meredith said quietly.

Bruce's smile vanished by bits as he paid less attention to the room and more attention to the woman. Her voice was small and, if he didn't miss his guess, even shaken. It could be that the team had said or done something, or she could be feeling off. That, too, had been a large part of her life this past week as she handled the painful and sickening effects of trying to even out her hormones and growth. It hadn't been pretty.

"Are you feeling alright?" Bruce asked carefully. "You look a little pale."

Meredith huffed softly. "No, I don't. I'm not wearing my make-up."

"All the more reason to be concerned that you're pale," he said, quirking a half smile. Apparently, she achieved the light brown skin she naturally had by using sunscreen, but that didn't mean she was by any means naturally pale.

"I'm fine." She crossed her arms delicately, avoiding touching anything with her nails, Bruce noticed. She must have just painted them.

"Fine," he said. "Just checking, like I said. I'll see you for dinner, then."

"Actually . . . maybe not." She hurried to add on to that at his questioning look. "I'm not sick, really. It's just, I'm thinking right now. Let's say. Got a lot to think about."

Bruce just nodded. "Let's say," had recently become her favorite phrase, and it had taken no time for him to realize this was her way of trying to be trustworthy while still communicating that she really didn't want to talk about it. He had decided to respect that for now. "Alright, well, you know where to find Alfred if you need anything." Alfred had suggested he offer his own help on more than one occasion, but at that he drew the line. It was a flat fact that he had work to be doing, and it was also a flat fact that Meredith and Alfred got along far better anyway. He waited for Meredith's answering nod, then left.

In time, he knew the things hidden by those "let's say"s would become clear to him. He made it his job to know things, and he and this young woman both knew he would find out anything she hid, given time. That phrase was as much an admission that she knew he'd ferret out what she was hiding as it was a challenge to do so. In fact, she often uttered the phrase with a grin. If there were anything he needed to be concerned about not knowing the truth behind, it would be the things she didn't say "let's say" after. There were few things in that short conversation that she hadn't said that phrase after, but those were the things to think on. He was willing to bet that she wasn't feeling as fine as she wanted him to think.

* * *

Dick and the rest of his team were making their way to the pizza place on foot. At this rate, they'd be there before Meredith, but, even though he had chosen not to worry about walking his team through Gotham without its dark knight's express permission, he didn't want to keep them out on the streets longer than was really necessary at night. That was just asking for trouble. His team didn't know how to deal with the kind of trouble Gotham could dish out, either. In a pinch, he could count on Artemis and Wally to know how to handle a street crisis, but his speedster friend was used to the kind of street crime the Gem Cities dished out. Dick had chosen a well-lit, heavy-traffic area for the meet up, but it was still Gotham.

"Great," Artemis growled from behind him and to his left. True to her experience, she had unconsciously helped him form a little hedge of protection around the rest of the team. Wally was on his right doing the same. Dick almost hated to ask what had Artemis in a temper now, but he did anyway.

"What?" he asked wearily.

"I've got like three messages from GA," Artemis said, fiddling with her dated cell phone. "And about six texts. Looks like he knows I'm not at the mountain but not where I am, and he's getting progressively less happy about it."

Wally uneasily checked his phone. "Oh . . . yeah, Uncle Barry's been calling too . . . no messages, but that's not really his thing. He's probably worried."

As the rest of the team checked various forms of communication to discover that the League as a whole knew they were AWOL at this point, Dick checked his own phone. He wasn't surprised to find that Bruce hadn't called or texted, but he was surprised to find a missed call from Barbara. He hesitated on that one. She probably deserved a call back, but it also didn't seem urgent since she'd only called once. He also wasn't sure he wanted to deal with anything else right now, however trivial or innocent. He sighed as duty won out. You just didn't have a vigilante team member and best friend and ignore her phone calls. He redialed as he turned onto the street the pizza shop was on.

"Dick!" Barbara said, picking up after just two rings. "Seriously? You're ignoring my calls now?"

Dick winced. "Whoa, Babs, I missed one call. One. That's hardly ignoring you."

"Oh, like you haven't been ignoring life and common sense in general for the past two weeks. You're ignoring me."

"Am not," Dick said, glancing back at his curious teammates slightly embarrassed by the accusation even though they couldn't hear Barbara making it. "My phone was off."

"Why on earth was your phone off?" Barbara asked sounding genuinely confused.

"Just . . . reasons, ok? What was so important that I deserved to be blown up at for missing one call?"

"Dodgy much?" Barbara accused. "You totally sound guilty. It was just I had something I was hoping to talk to you and B about, and you know he's not going to answer the phone."

"Also not true. B answers the phone," Dick said.

"Right, and have you tried calling him in the last week, because I have and he doesn't answer the phone." There was an automated voice on the other end, very faint but Dick heard it anyway, calling out a train stop just before the one you'd get off at to get to this very sector.

"Crazy week, Babs. Hey, are you not home yet?" Dick asked.

"I went home, but then I came back out, you know?" she answered.

"Yeah," Dick said, he knew she meant she was hoping to be called for patrol tonight. "Don't think that'll be happening. You should go home. Quiet night, I think I'm even taking a break." He could hear her growl on the other end.

"I don't know what it is you two think you can keep from me, but you do realize it's not going to work forever, right? I'm a part of this team! I know something is going on, and I want in on it. I'm not even being selfish here. I saw something today that has me worried about you, Dick, and I want to talk to you and B about it."

"Wait, wait," Dick said, just in case she was poised to continue. "About me? I'm perfectly fine. Just out getting some dinner, nothing to worry about." His eyes scanned the crowd and skyline carefully anyway.

"On your own? Are you stupid? Where are you, I'll come meet you."

Dick frowned. She really did sound concerned. Her jabs at his intelligence usually had a lot more tease and a lot less bluntly honest question to them. "That's really not necessary, Babs; I'm serious. I'm not by myself, and you know I can take care of myself. I'm more worried about you being out by yourself. You really should go home. Everything's fine."

"Are you with B?" she asked eagerly. "Just tell me where you are, and I can meet both of you."

Dick made a frustrated noise, pausing with the pizza place in sight as well as the sector train station. "No. Look, I can't meet up tonight, ok? I'm busy, but I'm definitely ok. Just . . . hang tight, and I'll tell B you called when I get home."

"Wait, you're not with him-"

"Bye, Babs!" Dick interrupted her, hanging up.

"Girl trouble?" Wally joked.

"You have no idea," Dick said. He led the team into the pizza shop, finally, chose a table that faced the windows, and sat down to wait while the others ordered at the counter. He kept his eyes locked on the train station. He told himself it was because he was expecting Meredith to arrive that way, but something also told him that Barbara wasn't going to drop this and to top it all off he knew better than to ignore her instincts. Barbara noticed things. She couldn't always put two and two together like Batman could, but it happened a lot that somewhere in her subconscious she just knew trouble when she saw it. That meant trouble was coming, maybe coming for him, and, yes, he had to admit that it was dawning on him very quickly that not only was he out without Bruce's permission or possibly knowledge but he'd brought his team with him. If Babs was worried, he was way more worried. Positively disturbed. If Meredith wasn't here in the next ten minutes, he was leaving.

* * *

Barbara stared in disbelief at the phone in her hand. It was completely uncalled for to hang up on her, and despite their needling and competitive natures Dick always, and she meant always, paid attention when her instincts said to. She dialed Bruce's personal cell, and, as expected, it rang until the answering service picked up asking her to leave her name and number and a short message.

"Hey, listen, I just got off the phone with Dick," Barbara said after the beep, knowing he'd know who had called, "and I'm a little worried. He's acting odd, and he says he's not with you. Do you know where he is? He won't tell me, and-" she cut off as the train jerked to a sudden stop, actually knocking the phone out of her hand and off to who knew where under the mass of people. She looked down the length of the track that she could see. They were nowhere near the next stop, but there also didn't seem to be anything terribly wrong. It was possible it was just a technical difficulty, but it didn't feel right and now the only mode of communication she had on her was Batgirl's communicator. She couldn't use that with this many people around. Well, maybe Bruce would actually listen to her message now that it sounded all dramatic and look into it. Maybe he'd find out everything was fine. And if not, at least Batman would be all over it.

* * *

Meredith had taken some time to slip out of the house and get into the city, but she was just a few blocks – okay, ten and three more turns – from her destination now. She was jogging, but no one seemed to notice or care. She had always loved that about Gotham; it was so easy to be invisible here. Most people called it being cold and unfriendly. She called it a sweet blessing. There was such freedom in invisibility. The jogging helped keep her warm in the cold, but honestly she wished it didn't. She was keenly aware that this was the first time she'd felt cold air directly on her face, not through layers of carefully applied cosmetics, in years, and it felt so good. She wondered if her nose would be red when she reached the pizzeria.

She also wondered at times if she was going the right way. She had mapped out her route in her head following the train, because she hadn't been to this area of the city in a very long time. None of it was familiar, and she needed the point of reference. Even though she was travelling with the train consistently on her right, going in the direction she knew to be correct, she couldn't help but worry. Gotham was not the kind of city you wanted to get lost in, and the last thing she needed was to cause another scene. Or be late and have the team leave. It would have been nice to just take the train, but she didn't have the rail card. As she passed the last stop before the one in the correct sector, she noticed the agitation of the crowds of people inside. Apparently, something was wrong with the train. Perhaps it was just as well she hadn't been able to take it.

* * *

Dick had been ignoring the rest of his team for several minutes in his steady vigil, watching the train station and the crowds going by. For a while, they had been too busy eating and talking to notice, but now they had fallen into an uneasy quiet. Zatanna had asked him what he was doing, but he'd just told her he was doing nothing in particular. What was he supposed to say? That a fellow vigilante they weren't even supposed to know about yet had given him reason to suspect, despite all evidence to the contrary, that he might be in danger? Half of them would start poking holes in that and asking questions. The other half would immediately think Meredith was going to try to murder him. Wally had tried to snap him out of it by offering him a piece of his many slices of pizza. An offering of food from him was nothing to sneer at, but Dick was just picking at it as he moved his gaze between station and crowds, eating little balls of Italian sausage off the top one by one. He still heard the screams before he knew what caused them.

He had momentarily switched from watching the station to making a sweep of the crowds when the first one fell. His eyes wrenched back to the station in time to see the second fall. It was a child. From this far away he couldn't tell if it was a girl or a boy. Falling all the way from the station at train level, where somehow an entire wall was simply gone. The fall seemed to drag on, but eventually the child disappeared behind the crowd level. He knew it wasn't possible, but he swore he heard its body crack and crush as it hit pavement. Above all the noise of hundreds of people moving and screaming, he swore he could hear it, and his eyes stayed glued to where somewhere dozens of feet away he knew the body lay. He didn't see the next to fall. He was up out of his chair and already darting through the crowd before Wally yelling at him from beside him made him realize he'd moved. He glanced over at Wally just long enough to nod. He wasn't sure what his friend had said, but he'd been a reminder to Dick to get his brain in gear.

He took stock of what he had. Unfortunately, it was only the basics. His belt was neatly collapsed under his jacket, and he had a rebreather in it which he'd need if this was that illness again. Hopefully, the illness was airborne and the rebreather would stop it. He pulled that out of his belt and put it on, his teammates following his lead with their own equipment. That was where the good ideas ended, though. Many times he had fought alongside his team in other cities in civs by putting on sunglasses to hide his identity, but that wasn't enough here. This was Gotham, his home turf. It had been drilled into his head that no matter what while he was here at home he had to be Robin or he had to be Dick: he couldn't be both. He was too recognizable, and even a panicked crowd could recognize him from video footage later. Or worse, someone like Joker could. People running toward trouble stood out. Even if he had been in a position to help in civs, he had no way to get up to the station yet. The collapsed belt was not capable of containing bat-rope and the necessary grappling gun or his uniform, although he did have those in a satchel he was carrying. He was going to have to rely on the rest of his team to give him time to get dressed out.

"M'gann, I need us linked up now! I can't help yet, so I need you guys-" He stopped as they finally broke through enough of the crowd to reach the bottom of the station and the first bodies. Looking at it now, he still couldn't be sure if the child had been a boy or a girl. He didn't even know if he could be sure which victim the child had been. There were two roughly the right size. Dick swallowed hard and choked out the words as M'gann's mental link slipped into place. "I need you to catch them."

* * *

High in the stopped train, Barbara started to get the gist of things as phones all around her began to ring. Concerned loved ones were calling their friends and family they knew took this train route every day at this time. She made the decision to take out her communicator despite the danger of being spotted, keeping it down low where it couldn't be spotted by any surveillance on the train, and simply pressed the call button. As she made her way to the back of the train, she pulled up the scarf she had around her neck to cover her hair. She was going to try to cut her way out of this train, and she knew her hair would be too bright and attention-drawing.

On the ground and a mere two blocks from the station Dick and his team were under, Meredith pulled out a tablet device. It had taken her longer to figure out something was going on, but scores of people running collectively away from one location tends to mean just one thing. She had a phone, but it was a basic thing and couldn't do what she wanted. She started up a program of her own making and began the task of getting a call through to the Bat Cave. It was going to be a two step process: first she had to remotely hack Dick's communicator; then she could call the cave. There was no way she could directly hack the cave, and she hadn't yet been trusted with the ability to call directly. She hacked on the run, carefully, because the crowds of fleeing civilians could easily knock it from her hands and as simple as that end any hope of reaching help. She didn't have nifty things like wrist computers planted in combat gloves.

As soon as the call was on its way to the cave, she made her way to the rooftops to try to see what was happening. Close enough now to see the actual station, its base, and the team launching into action, she saw that her call wasn't going to go through. Her eyes quickly picked Robin out – he had taken the time to change into uniform –, and she could just make out his lips moving. He wouldn't need to speak to his teammates with Miss Martian there; he was on call with Batman already and she couldn't patch through at the same time. Meredith ended her call attempt and knelt on the roof, taking a series of measured deep breaths. It was chaos below her, but she had to remind herself that Batman was on the way and she did not have permission to engage. She did not have permission to engage. Breathe. Just breathe. Her eyes followed Robin back and forth through the air as he tried to help his teammates keep civilians inside the station. The timing of his movements was just barely off. He was shaken, and Meredith was stubbornly ignoring why herself. Don't look down. Just breathe. Shadows moved on the rooftops, and only she seemed to notice them. She kept her eyes trained on Robin, though. She did not have permission to engage, but if Batman wasn't there in the next few minutes . . . well, she was just going to have to ground herself again later.

* * *

Batman was at the train station for central Gotham and Wayne Tower. Some would say he'd gotten lucky. An armed robbery had been called in near the city's transportation hub shortly after dark, and he had answered the call at the start of his patrol. He didn't bother calling in either of his partners. He had been keeping Barbara at arm's length since Meredith had been brought into his home, hoping to keep her mostly a secret from the observant girl for a while, and he knew Dick was busy with his team doing something that was arguably important. This was a simple robbery despite the guns, and he could handle it himself, which he did in record time. Because of this robbery, he had already been by the train station along with police and ambulances when the news of people collapsing inside had hit. When Meredith had brought back the dead Robin a week ago, he had begun creating an anti-virus. Just four days ago, he had handed it over to the commissioner with instructions to make sure all emergency response teams had access to it and instruction on how to use it. Damage was done in this next station attack, but because of these measures and the armed robbery drawing police and emergency teams to the area no lives were lost at the scene. Lucky. Except that Batman didn't believe in luck. His suspicion was already peaked when he started receiving calls from both of his partners.

Barbara's call came in first, but it was just panicked noise. He had to assume that since she wasn't giving him information in her no-nonsense, Commissioner's-daughter way she was not in uniform or else was otherwise indisposed. He hoped for the former. Dick's call came through just seconds later.

"We have another train death incident at-" Dick cut off and didn't immediately come back. His voice sounded off.

"I'm at Wayne Tower station. Where are you?" Batman prompted.

"Fifth stop. Babs is on the train between the fourth and fifth stops. I can't get her," Dick said. "And we need backup."

We. His partner knew better than to be coy about being here with his team, but this also meant the situation was bad. At full strength the team still needed help containing the incident, and the full team could go down if backup didn't arrive in time. Batman resisted wasting breath to swear. That conversation with the Justice League was not one he wanted to have.

"Can it wait? The train might be contaminated," Batman said. He didn't need to explain further. Dick would understand from that response that he was already in the Batmobile headed that way and planned on saving Barbara and the train occupants first unless told otherwise.

"Repeat, we need backu-" Dick cut off again, this time with a grunt and a crackle in the communicator that said he'd been jolted. That told Batman three things: 1) the team was engaged in combat; 2) Robin, because he had better be fighting in uniform, was either too preoccupied to realize that Barbara needed help, unlikely since he brought her up unasked, or too preoccupied to listen to him responding; and 3) Robin was sufficiently concerned with his current situation that he was willing to request backup twice despite realizing that Barbara might be in danger.

"Understood," Batman said and stopped distracting his partner to concentrate on his own plan.

He was going to head for Barbara first. The fact remained that a team of seven experienced vigilantes was handling the station crisis, while Barbara was on her own and worryingly unable to use her communicator. On top of that, the Batmobile could get him places fast, but it couldn't drive over people. He suspected mass panic near the station would make it necessary to stop several blocks from the station and take to the rooftops the rest of the way. He may as well get Batgirl why he was at it, and the two of them could head to the station. He tried Barbara's communicator just in case. This time she picked up.

"Gran!" Barbara yelled, holding her hand over the small device she had up to her ear like it was a normally sized cell phone instead of a specialized communicator.

"I'm on my way to you," Batman said simply.

"Good," Barbara answered. "I'm good, don't worry, and I think the train is going to start again soon. But something's happening at the next station, and we're worried."

"Any way off the train?" he asked.

"We're between stations, so we're stuck here," Barbara answered.

Batman understood. For whatever reason, she wasn't able to get herself off the train. He didn't believe in luck for a reason. This was all going far too badly to be an accident. He heard a great, creaking heave over the communicator.

"We're moving now. Slowly, but moving," Barbara said. "I'm trying to get to the front." Translation: she was trying and failing to get to an emergency brake. "You gonna pick me up at the station?"

"Picking you up now." He had just pulled up behind the train. "I'm going to stop the train, then I'll come get you all out. I need you to be ready to come out first and get changed." Translation: she was needed for backup.

"Where's Ricky?" Barbara asked. She sometimes went to what Dick called unnecessary lengths to keep their secret in crowded areas, but she noticed Batman seemed to have no complaints about the extra caution.

"In need of backup," Batman said. He was busy engaging his heavy duty towing cables, so he missed the small red blip coming up on the Batmobile's GPS at first. With the cables attached to the train, he punched the gas pedal once to set the hooks, then eased off to just enough speed to slow the train until he could get to the emergency brake himself. He didn't want to tear the train apart. He set cruise control so that he could get topside of the train, and that's when he noticed the blip on his dash. One of the trackers he'd tried to hide on Meredith last week was showing her located at the station. His eyes narrowed at the screen, and he paused for a moment. The only reason that would be on her now was if she had put it on disabled and was now enabling it. She wanted him to know where she was. If he thought the worst, she was waving it in his face that she was about to murder Robin under cover of this catastrophe. If he thought the best, she was trying to signal trouble.

He grappled up to the train, calling Meredith's cell phone on his communicator while he worked to open a hole in the roof of the front of the train. He didn't bother trying the doors: if Barbara hadn't opened them, there was a reason.

"Mr. Wayne?" Meredith answered.

"What are you doing at the station?" Batman growled. "I don't have the time to babysit you."

"I'm sending you video of the scene from my tablet," she said.

Batman frowned, but took a moment to engage the screen in his mask lenses to receive her video. He'd talk to her later about hacking his equipment. He only needed one look at the scene she was showing him to know he needed to stop watching and work faster. He switched off the screen and concentrated on the hole he was cutting. His tiny laser cut through the old train like a knife through butter, but he kept having to slow down to allow occupants the time to move out of the way of it. They had pressed into the train's operating compartment to try to get a better view of the next station as news started to come in.

"So?" Meredith prompted, still on call.

"So you're in the area. Go. Backup arrives in five minutes. No killing," Batman said.

"I know that one," she said. Then she hung up, and Batman was left to free the train's occupants.

He could see Barbara making her way to him, pushing and shoving and making herself out to be a selfish brat just like the rest of them, and he was almost through. Five minutes and Batgirl could be at the station while he finished this. He was trusting Meredith with this, but only for five minutes.

* * *

Robin kept trying to find the time to resume his conversation with Batman, but there just wasn't any. The team had been surprise-attacked from the rooftops. The attacking force was non-descript: all male, all dressed in black and wearing masks, all carrying various hand-to-hand weapons. Basically, they were your classic goons. Aside from being able to fight on ropes and on the sides of buildings, they didn't seem particularly skilled, but now just wasn't the time to be dealing with them. Zatanna, Miss M, KF, and Superboy were all on the task of handling the civilians inside the station. They were managing to keep them contained or else catch them at this point, but it was all they could do to keep up. Zatanna's spell-work had patched up the station's wall, but it wasn't very stable. Miss M was on support for the wall with her telekinesis. Kid Flash was currently running collapsed victims to ambulances that couldn't yet break through the fleeing crowds to get to them. Superboy was inside the station listening to heartbeats.

They had been about to evacuate everyone, but when the attack hit things had become too chaotic and they couldn't accomplish much less risk it. Listening to heartbeats and picking out the ones affected before they collapsed seemed the best way for now to help Kid Flash get people to medical help sooner. It was a temporary fix, and they knew it. More and more people became affected as this drew on, and Robin had to guess that whatever was doing this was actually inside the station where all of those people were shut up with nowhere to go. They were depending on him, Artemis, and Aqualad to clear the area for an evac, but it just wasn't happening.

Robin was in the air fighting; Aqualad and Artemis were on the ground. Honestly, Robin wanted to get down to ground level and go back to back with the others, but the sheer numbers and tight space were a problem. He needed room to fight to full potential. Unfortunately, so did Artemis, and his attempts to make room for her were falling short. Suddenly, he was very aware of what must have been one of the many reasons that Batman kept his operation so small and his permissible vigilante visitors list so short: there just wasn't room for team action in Gotham. At least, not like this. He had to admit, though, that part of the problem was him. Ignoring the massacre on the ground was taking too much of his attention, and it wasn't even working. He was off, and it showed in how long it was taking him to fend off his mid-air attackers. Whoever organized this had a lot of man-power to throw around and knew exactly how to throw him off his stride. The rest of the team was confused and frantic. He was broken. And any minute now he was going to make a mistake and "broken" would no longer be figurative. So much for staying traught.

Two attackers managed to swing in at him at the same time, but the ground must have been clearing out because Artemis took out the one behind him for him. Reaching up to take his length of rope in hand, Robin wrenched himself up just as the other attacker swung by, but their ropes tangled. Robin was already using the gun to pull himself upward to a balcony below train level, and this brought his attacker up with him. The balcony was adjacent a small coffee shop and was furnished with several small tables with closed umbrellas and little chairs around them. The place was empty and dirty. It was too cold now for the area to really be used, so it had been closed off for the season. No one had come to pack away the furniture yet, though. It was a perfect place for Robin to scrap with even several attackers at once, but he'd avoided it until now to try to support Aqualad and Artemis from the air. It hadn't worked. Now he was trying to quickly take out his attackers in an advantageous area and then get back to his teammates, which is probably what he should have done to begin with. He wasn't thinking clearly enough.

Robin broke clear of the tangled ropes first, since all it took was letting go of his grappling gun. Three more attackers swung onto the balcony as he was knocking this one out cold. They lashed out together with police batons, and he sprung over them, grabbing one of the closed umbrellas and swinging around on it to kick the nearest man in the head. That goon went down, and Robin turned his attention to the second man, rolling away under the table, lying on his back, and kicking a chair at him. It was skill, not luck, when the corner of the chair collided with the man's temple. He rolled away again as the third came at him, but when he came up he found that the balcony was now full of goons in black with more still swinging up.

He could hear Artemis swearing from the ground, so they had to have followed him up. Success, he'd managed to clear the ground for his teammates. The problem was this confirmed Barbara's concerns to a so not asterous degree. They had to be after him specifically, and worse, driving him here had to have been part of their plan. Now he was right where they wanted him, and he couldn't get down the way he'd come up. Robin turned and leapt into the wall of the coffee shop. It was all glass and shattered on impact, letting him roll inside.

Every last attacker turned and followed him. He knew they were after him now, but he was still surprised at that move. If he and Batman weren't mistaken about the disease being airborne, they shouldn't have been following him. He backed himself in behind the checkout counter and set about trying to hold them off until Artemis and Aqualad made it up or his attackers succumbed to whatever disease was inside. He hated being hemmed in and it wasn't his strong suit, but he needed as many sides protected for him as possible. He needed a narrow lane of access for these men to reach him. He fought back with just as many coffee cups as gadgets, using whatever was closest, and he thought he could see the crowd starting to thin out, but those remaining were getting steadily closer. They pressed in on him slowly but steadily, taking their time, almost as though they were waiting for something. That worried him. He was waiting for Artemis and Aqualad and hopefully Batman, but if these guys were waiting for something he needed to know what or get out. And he didn't know, and he couldn't get out.

" _Guys, any new info?"_ Robin asked, reaching out to his team using Miss M's link. _"I've got a bunch of guys acting really strange here, and it's getting a little disturbing. They're waiting"_ he held that thought while he threw a coffee pot in someone's face just to watch one of his fellows drag his dazed form away so that they could continue to come after him, _"on something. Any ideas?"_

"Us to kick their butts?" Artemis said gruffly. "Hold out, we're almost to you."

"No idea," Miss Martian said. "Perhaps on these people to all fall ill."

Robin frowned. That didn't make any sense considering he now knew that he was their immediate target, but he didn't have the time to spare explaining that. He was already distracted enough because of this conversation, and he'd just made his first mistake. In turning too far to face an attacker coming behind the counter, he'd exposed a little too much of his back to attackers on the other side of the counter. One of them sprang to catch his cape and yanked him back against the the vinyl counter-top. It didn't hurt him, and in a moment he had his cape released from the rest of his uniform to free himself. But that, too, was a mistake. The man took the cape and looped it around his neck, pulling him back again, and, although Robin had a half dozen ways to get out of this situation too, none of them were fast enough to keep a man behind the counter from reaching up and yanking off his rebreather.

It clicked then. Of course, they had air filtering devices of their own under their masks, and they just wanted to get close enough to expose him to whatever was in this building. He was going to have to hold his breath until he was outside.

Robin pushed off the back counter and flipped backward over the man holding his cape. This would have released him from the hold, but he felt the cape go slack around his neck before he even landed. The man was letting him go. Unfortunately, the next one wasn't. He was now trying to break straight through the crowd of attackers and back out onto the balcony, but thinned out or not the mob was still too thick. After several seconds of people trying to get a hold on him, a goon landed a solid hit in his gut. Robin doubled over, but he rolled with it. Surprisingly, he met no resistance yet again. They men had cleared out a small space around him and were simply standing at the ready, apparently intent on keeping him there. They were choking him out. Literally. They knew he was holding his breath and were waiting until he took his next breath. And considering he'd just taken a good hit to the solar plexus, he was going to take that breath very soon. Artemis and Aqualad weren't here yet, and that meant he could assume they'd run into a road block. He needed out.

He didn't even bother trying to break through the crowd. He backed up and used the checkout counter as a springboard, trying to leap over them, but one of them had been waiting for that too. He could only roll with the blow as a man swinging a folding chair took him right out of the air. And he breathed. He was up again immediately and running. This time they just seemed to surround and hound him, slowing him down. They weren't even trying to stop him anymore, just hold him back. He didn't know how long that lasted before suddenly they were gone. He had a clear path onto the balcony, and a clear path off of it. He grabbed one of the many grappling hooks and ropes the attackers had let fall on the balcony, and jumped up onto the railing. Immediately, he realized this was the worst idea; they had been waiting for him to fully take in the virus so he would make exactly this kind of mistake. Robin felt the muscles in his body spasmodically tighten, not a seizure but the beginnings of paralysis, and it was enough to make his feet slip. He tipped over the edge and fell.

* * *

Meredith was sweating. She had already changed into the same Robin-inspired clothes she'd worn a week ago while she waited for Batman's permission to act, so she had been ready to leap when he finally gave it. It was thin layers in this chilly weather, but she was so nervous she was sweating. She didn't need Batman to tell her that she couldn't kill, and she wouldn't. She wasn't nervous because she didn't know if she could follow that directive. She was nervous because she knew all too well that certainty didn't always equal reality.

As soon as she received the go ahead, she leapt from the rooftop straight for the side of the station. While her momentum was still carrying her, she pulled a grappling gun and fired. She hadn't been issued this; she'd pilfered it during her tour of the Batcave. But Batman knew she had it. She knew Batman knew she had it. For that matter, Batman knew she knew he knew she had it, and the way she figured it, him being in the know so many times over basically equaled permission to use it. She had been trained for many years on many other kinds of gadgetry, but in the last six years this mode of short-distance travel had become familiar ground. It almost took the edge off of her nervousness to be swinging through the air on it. Only almost. The fact remained that she didn't love heights and she'd lost sight of Robin a bit ago.

Robin had already entered the coffee shop followed by the troupe of attackers when she finally got Batman's attention. She felt confident he was still alive and well, but she wasn't taking any chances. While she was waiting, she had also hacked into Robin's glove computer to have it perform the simple task of receiving and funneling all sound to a small receiver of her own design. It rested in her right ear disguised as a Bluetooth device and was made to filter out all human sounds. She didn't want any grunting, yelling, or even words. Instead, it fed her everything else which she then used to map out in her head the movements Robin and his attackers were making. She knew when he made his bid for freedom, and she guessed why. More importantly, as she ran along the wall of the station suspended from her line, she heard the soft, precise sound of Robin's boot slipping against metal in otherwise complete silence. There was no accompanying sound of a line being shot or thrown. No sound of an already hooked line pulling taught.

He was falling.

She didn't remember the next few moments. She had to have swung round to the side of the building Robin was falling from, and she had to have caught him. She only knew this, though, because when her consciousness returned she was holding him to her, exactly as though she had snatched him out of midair and rolled to a safe stop with him. She checked his pulse and it was strong for now, but he was completely still and whatever was paralyzing him was beginning to affect his breathing. She had no way to help him. Batman had said five minutes, but she had seen enough of the tragedy so far to know that that wasn't quite soon enough. There was a reason they had Kid Flash running people to ambulances. She took a deep breath to help her think and try to ignore that he was still capable of looking at her. Then, she straightened out Robin's back and neck so that he could continue to breathe as easily as possible.

Her first instinct was to call for Kid Flash to run Robin to an ambulance like the others, and she knew he would do it. Gladly. Immediately. But she remembered her time with Robin's team earlier, and she had learned something in that time. Her priorities weren't the same as everyone else's, and they were going to demand that she change her way of thinking if she wanted to join them. That meant not calling Kid Flash away from helping innocent civilians to save a team member. She stared resolutely up at the station and the returning but smaller horde of attackers as she called Batman using Robin's own communicator. If she looked down at him, she wouldn't be able to do it.

"You had better have an antidote for this already. Robin's down. Paralysis. Labored breathing. Advise," she said, getting right to the point.

Batman was by this point evacuating the train, but he still heard her loud and clear. Her voice was flat and emotionless and definitely feminine. Her own. This was the voice Batman remembered from the first time they had spoken as Robin lay dead on Miss Martian's bioship. But now wasn't the time to think about that. "Left side of his belt, third pocket back, an unmarked vial. Get the contents under his tongue and don't let him swallow until you've counted to ten."

Meredith followed all of these instructions as soon as they were given and was already pouring the powdery white contents of the vial under Robin's tongue as directed when Batman finished. She held his mouth open and his tongue down to keep him from swallowing and counted to ten. The remaining attackers were on her before she reached six. She curled around Robin to protect him from their blows and just kept counting. Had she had a hand free she would have wrapped herself in his cape to protect herself a little too, but she didn't and any and all sharp objects cut straight through her hoodie to bare skin. She had the time before she reached ten to ponder why none of these blows were killing blows. Then, she hit ten, and she was on them like a storm, deceptively calm, indiscriminately destructive, and the only safe place was just beneath her where Robin lay slowly getting his breath back.

It didn't register to her that the rest of the team was on its way to them, but they were, fighting their way through mob or in Kid Flash's case around it. It also didn't register to her that as the attackers finally started to accept their defeat, limping away broken a dozen different ways, Batgirl was running along the train's track coming toward the station. In her hyper-focused state, it barely even registered that Robin had crawled out from where she stood over him and was standing up with Zatanna's help. The only sign she gave that she noticed this was that she allowed herself to step where his body had been as she gave the last retreating attacker a dislocated shoulder to send him on his way.

The team stood in silence, watching Meredith uncertainly and eyeing Robin worriedly as the attackers retreated. Ambulances and medical teams had made it through and were handling the civilians, freeing them up to worry about whether Meredith being there and Robin looking a little off was a situation in need of handling and if so how best to handle it. Between the fight and everything she was fending off mentally, Meredith wasn't exactly herself right now. Whatever herself was. Her eyes were wide open and alert, but she herself looked vague. Her body was loose and held poised at the ready, and even though her eyes were alert they were staring slightly down and into the group of team members, not up at their faces.

Artemis knew this kind of stance very well from her training both before Green Arrow and with. Meredith wasn't really watching them. She was watching movements, ready to react to any of them without thought. But that meant she either didn't notice or didn't care that they were the good guys, so she wasn't safe while she looked like that. Artemis didn't hesitate to communicate that to the others through the mind link. That kept them all still. Unfortunately, Robin had broken off his connection to the mind link as he fell just in case he hit ground. He didn't want any of that sensation getting through to the team or even just M'gann. He was aslo behind Meredith where he couldn't see her eyes and understand the situation for himself. He assumed Meredith's stance meant she was worried the team would attack her next.

"Meredith," Dick said quietly. He frowned when there was no reaction at all. Taking a deep breath, he straightened up all the way, flexing his fingers which, along with his toes, were still a little tingly. He could see Batgirl coming, and he was sure she wasn't meant to meet Meredith like this yet. Meredith needed to leave. "Meredith," he said again a little louder, putting his hand on her shoulder. That was his mistake. He had a moment to wonder why Artemis had hissed "Don't!" at him before he was back-fisted in the face and sent reeling.

Robin was up on his feet just in time for Meredith to wrap him up. Her left hand's heel pressed against his throat, right hand gripped his left forearm, left ankle hooked behind his right, and right leg applied pressure behind his left, knee-to-knee. She was going to push him over and choke him at the same time. His brain said he need to fall and get away from that hand on his throat, but his instinct said the last thing he needed was to go to the ground where she wanted him. He took as deep a breath as he could get and grabbed onto her right forearm with his left hand, prepared to hold onto her with everything he had.

Then, he watched as she tensed and inexplicably turned to blink owlishly at their arms, each of them gripping the other. The team was on them in an instant, hands on him and hands on Meredith trying to separate them. At Artemis' direction, Aqualad, Superboy, and Miss M were all on Meredith ready to hold back the dangerous party should their intervention make her even more violent, but she didn't seem to have noticed it. It was a stand-off of one very confused potential assassin and a team trying not to push her over the edge. Unfortunately, Batgirl wasn't in the loop.

Robin heard "Don't!" for the second time as Artemis failed to stop Batgirl's attack. Her spinning kick landed full on in Meredith's face, and Aqualad, Superboy, and Miss M were forced to let go of her or risk hurting her. Meredith spun with the kick and kept spinning, one way and then the other, as Batgirl pelted her with quick blows.

Robin struggled against the hands holding him back. Zatanna, Artemis, and Kid Flash had been trying to pull him away from Meredith and were still holding him.

"Let go!" he said, straining in their grip. "Batgirl doesn't know what she's doing!"

"Batgirl?" Artemis said at the same time that Zatanna calmly pointed out his mistake.

"I don't know," Zatanna said. "It looks to me like she knows exactly what she's doing."

Robin could see where she'd think that. Meredith's arms were up and blocking, but hits were still landing and they were landing hard. It looked like she didn't even have the time to get a hit in on Batgirl, like she was bouncing around like a pinball because she couldn't help it. While it was tempting to believe that Batgirl was winning, though, Robin had to remember that sparring match with Bruce. Whatever was going on, it needed to stop now, even if it looked like Batgirl could handle herself. Meredith was tricky, and she was not in a safe mood right now. He pulled himself free.

"Stop them anyway!" he yelled as he ran to do just that. He didn't feel at his best right now, but no one but him seemed to be concerned. He'd have to find a way to stop them himself. They had moved some distance by now, and he thought fast while he caught up to them. Meredith wasn't the one attacking, but if he stopped Batgirl he'd give Meredith the opening she was possibly waiting for. He'd have to aim for the defender. He didn't need to beat her, just break her and Batgirl apart. To that end, he rolled a few feet before he reached them and launched himself feet first at Meredith's side. As hoped, the kick threw her away from Batgirl, but she rolled with it and came to a stop much closer than he had hoped she would. She could still attack from that distance, but now he had to stop Batgirl even if it offered an opening. She was taking his attack as a normal tag-team and running straight back into the fray.

"Stop!" Robin said, dropping low and sweeping Batgirl's legs from under her. He was up immediately and facing Meredith defensively but still talking to Batgirl. "You need to stop and let us handle this, Batgirl."

"What?" Batgirl shot back as she jumped back up. "You're the one who called for backup!"

"We don't need it for this!"

"Don't be stupid!" she said for the second time that night.

Batgirl tried to edge around him and he moved to bar her way, turning to look over his shoulder at her. "I'm not!" he said, turning back to face Meredith again. "I just know what you-" He cut off looking at Meredith's face. Something wasn't right. Well, more not right than before.

Aqualad put a hand on Batgirl's shoulder and stepped in front of her. The rest of the team had gathered too, and, although they looked just as confused as Batgirl did, they were standing between her and Meredith too.

"He is right," Aqualad said. "I am not certain who you are, but, please, we know this girl and are prepared to deal with her."

"Robin, wait!" Zatanna said, and Aqualad turned in surprise at her shout. Robin had stepped away from Batgirl and was cautiously approaching Meredith. She had come up in a crouch from his kick and hadn't moved from that position. Looking more closely at her face, Aqualad saw what had caught Robin's attention. She was still staring vaguely ahead, but the look in her eyes was no longer focus. Something was wrong. She looked terrified, lost.

"Wait, just let one of us handle her," Zatanna said, putting a hand on Robin's arm. Robin shook it off and knelt in front of Meredith.

"Hey," he said, his tone weirdly conversational. "What's your name?"

Batgirl alone didn't balk in confusion at that. Zatanna's hand still hung in the air in surprise. Robin rocked backward into a relaxed squat and hugged his knees. He smiled kindly and cocked his head a little, the picture of innocence and honest interest.

"Ok, well, what brings you out this far tonight, huh?," he asked, knowing perfectly well what. "You're not exactly dressed for the weather. You have a coat somewhere? I'd totally give you mine, but I'm an idiot and I'm not wearing one either. Capes are great for cold weather until the wind kicks up and they get all billowy, y'know. Not asterous." He reached up to his collar, but then remembered he'd taken off his cape earlier in the fight. "Oh, and I don't even have that right now. Sucks to be you, because I would have let you borrow it. It's over in that coffee shop somewhere. Which, by the way," he cocked his head slightly toward the station to give the illusion that he was looking that way; he wasn't, "is a nice little place that you should definitely visit sometime. After they clean it up and repair everything, I guess. Look, um, I don't mean to be pushy, but I don't want to leave you alone here and I kinda need to go get my grappling gun back, and I guess my cape, before somebody finds it. Would you mind coming with me until someone you know can come get you?" He held out his right hand to her, leaning forward and off-balance a little to look more relaxed. Meredith didn't take it, but she did shift her gaze to stare at it. He just kept it there.

For the spectators, the tables had turned. Batgirl now looked completely at ease, while the team were entirely confused. Batgirl stepped up beside Robin and bent forward to rest her hands on her knees, smiling and trying to look into Meredith's face to get her attention.

"I can stay with her while you get your stuff, if you want," she said to Robin. "I promise we'll just sit here until somebody comes for her."

Meredith flinched, and suddenly her left hand shot out and gripped Robin's forearm. She seemed to stare at their arms again, but then looked deliberately down and away. Robin didn't know what this meant or why she was doing it, but muscle memory intervened and nearly stole his breath from him again. His hands knew this grip. It was the precisely placed grip of two human beings swinging together from a trapeze high above the ground. He didn't know why she was acting like this. He had seen the fear in her eyes, the hopelessness, and he had reacted as he had been trained, talking her down like she was a jumper. He and Batman saw them every year trying to jump to their own deaths, to freedom. Batgirl had recognized it too and tried to help. Now, with Meredith clinging to his arm like this, he could see he hadn't been wrong. Whatever was going on, she was reaching out in a way she knew he would understand. She was trusting him not to let her fall.

Robin slowly reached out his left hand and gripped her right forearm. Sure enough, she gripped his arm back and seemed to breathe a little easier. Batgirl took the hint that whatever crisis this had been was averted for the moment and straightened, putting a call through to Batman.

"Don't suppose you know who this girl in the green hoodie is? Robin says he knows her," she said.

"Robin is safe?" Batman asked, ignoring her question. He didn't believe for one second that she hadn't recognized Meredith on sight, both as his new ward and as the Robin look-alike from a week ago. She was probing for information he didn't want to give her yet.

"That's debatable," Batgirl said, looking at Robin with a critical eye. "He seems safe, but this girl also seems a little unstable and might have it out for him."

"What is she doing now?" Batman asked.

"Honestly?" Batgirl shrugged to herself. "Clinging to him for dear life, it looks like." She watched as Robin's head came up a little and he nodded, seemingly to himself. He was getting instructions from Batman too, apparently.

"The team will handle her," Batman said. "Make sure the medical teams don't need help. I'm on my way now."

Batgirl nodded to herself and turned her attention back to the scene at hand, but from what she could see Robin and his new sister weren't moving and the team wasn't doing a thing. So much for them handling it. At least it didn't look like there was much that needed handling anymore. She left without a word to do as she was told.

A few seconds later, Batman arrived in the Batmobile. The situation on the ground wasn't quite a mess anymore. It was just . . . messy. It was going to take a little time for him to settle everything with the police who had followed him in, time he didn't want to have Meredith or the team spend out in the open, so he made a decision. Robin was given permission to take the Batmobile, Meredith, and whichever team members he wanted and would fit in the remaining two seats to a zeta tube and from there to Mount Justice. The rest of the team would follow on their own, and Batgirl would stay with him.

He expected Robin, and especially the team, to object. Instead, his partner immediately called the team around him to give out instructions. Robin chose Aqualad and Superboy to go with him in the Batmobile, leaving Artemis to guide Miss Martian and Zatanna through Gotham. The three girls would go by air using telekinesis and magic. Kid Flash would run himself to the zeta tube, but he knew where he was going. Batman watched them all leave before he called in the plane for himself and Batgirl. As a last thought, he sent coordinates to a spare Batmobile he kept in the much smaller cave still under construction under his office building. It wasn't the most recent model, but it might serve as a decent diversion should anyone attempt to track the occupants of the other Batmobile. Having done all he could for now, he turned his attention back to the catastrophe at hand. He wasn't sure yet who was behind this tragedy, but he would find out. As for who was to blame, he was. Always.

* * *

Not even a half hour later, the team plus one was back at the mountain sipping on hot drinks. In the sparring room. With a little time, Meredith was coming out of . . . whatever mental place she was in, emphasis on mental, but no one really felt easy allowing her any further into their HQ than the zeta tube necessitated she go. Robin was pretty sure that if they had taken the bioship back they'd have sat down to have their awkward powwow-and-hot-cocoa in the hangar. He had left for a few moments to fetch a first aid kit, but she had reacted badly to him trying to use it. Aside from that, only M'gann had gone anywhere and that only to fix the hot cocoa.

Robin was just glad that the quiet seemed to be having a good effect on Meredith, because no one really seemed to feel like talking. When he and Kid Mouth had nothing to say, you knew all hope of conversation was long gone. Judging from the fidgeting and fingers brushing over odd places on their clothes, it was clear most of his team really wished they were in uniform like him. They were still nervous about Meredith. He, on the other hand, severely wanted to be back in civs. Meredith had glanced over at him just once, paled, then immediately hid her face in her cocoa mug. He still wasn't sure what he thought of her, but he couldn't imagine it was a good thing that the sight of him in uniform threatened to send her back into her dangerous, lack-of-consciousness state. He couldn't change without leaving the team alone with her again, though.

Something had to give before KF finally learned to vibrate his molecules through things by accident or Artemis discovered she was actually a meta-human who could shoot arrows at people with her eyes. He wasn't the only one surprised when it was Superboy who finally broke the silence. KF actually spilled his cocoa on himself nearly drowning out Superboy with apologetic babbling.

"You never answered my question," Superboy said. It took Robin a moment to figure out what he was talking about and then another to remember what the question had been. It took Meredith even longer. Robin watched her closely as she first took a moment to realize he had been talking to her, then several moments to recall what he'd said and what question he was talking about. The regression into her dark mental hole that Robin had been expecting didn't happen, though. In fact, some of the color seemed to come back into her face, and she looked better. Glancing back at Superboy, Robin saw he was frowning but being surprisingly patient, and after a moment he visibly tried to smooth his face into something placid. It looked odd on his face. Robin could make a guess now at what had happened: Meredith's heart must heart must have sped up. Superboy must have heard it and was actually trying to be considerate. Or perhaps just cautious.

"You don't," Robin began slowly, "have to answer that right now." He snuck Superboy a look, but then he looked back at Meredith and shut up. She had looked up when Superboy spoke and was still looking up when Robin turned back to her. She had actually flinched when their eyes met.

"We all liked Superman," Meredith said, eyes darting back down to her mug. Robin was actually surprised she was answering at all. Her arms strained in a way that made it clear she wasn't setting her mug down against her criss-crossed legs but pressing it into them. Robin kept his eyes away from her face so he wouldn't startle her again by accident. "Not just me." She took a deep, slow breath. "The youngest of us was just short of ten years old when he was brought into the program. He was a gymnast. People were watching for him to go to the Olympics, he was that good. But he wasn't good for the program. He didn't take it well."

She stalled at that. It was hard to guess why, but Robin tried anyway. Did her memories of this boy in particular bother her? Did it bother her that she almost sounded as though she was suggesting some of them did take the program well? Robin frowned at her knees, still keeping his eyes down but wishing he could look at her face. Maybe she actually was suggesting that.

"He cried a lot," she finally continued. "Always did, even six years later. He was too optimistic. As the oldest and most accomplished on the team, I tried to help hold everyone together. The rest of them gave up on hope pretty quickly, but Lucas was different. Too young, maybe. I really thought he'd die if he didn't find something hopeful to hold onto. It's just . . ." her breath stuttered, "Batman and Robin aren't exactly the most hopeful people to emulate. Maybe Robin. Definitely not Batman. We learned a lot of strength and perseverance from them, but Lucas needed hope and I had to look somewhere else to bring him that. I didn't know much about Superman at the time, but I learned. Then I took everything I knew to my team, and we took to it almost like a fan club. We ferretted out every bit of information, every bit of history, we even had code phrases." Her voice sounded different when she said that, and Robin couldn't help sneaking a glance at her face. Her face had just one tear rolling down it and the smallest of smiles on it. Her color was up even more now, which he figured meant she was blushing a little even if in this case it just made her look normal.

"Instead of telling each other to keep trying or work harder, we'd tell each other the sun was shining. That . . . it was supposed to be a reminder that we could do anything if we tried. It was stupid, and we felt stupid. But Lucas became so much better after that. And so did we, honestly. I guess we didn't realize how much we needed hope until we started giving it to each other. We liked that there didn't seem to be anything that could kill him. Not true, of course, but he manages despite those things. And we liked that he managed to do his job without having to kill anyone. It was more than we could do, and it was more than human. More than Batman and Robin in all the ways that we needed. We needed someone it felt like couldn't be touched by anything. Of course, that's not really true of him either." Her voice was very soft now, and the smile was gone.

"Wasn't true of us. We were given three days to spend preparing before our final test, and we spent them travelling. We spent one day in Metropolis and one in Smallville. It didn't save us, but it made us feel like we could be saved. I buried them in the sunniest place I could find on our base."

Superboy waited a moment to respond. His eyebrows were scrunched together; he always looked angry when he was thinking.

"So," he said eventually, "sometimes you do know what's good from what's not."

Meredith waited a moment too. Then she wiped her face dry and looked up at Superboy, face actually angled a little to the side and away from Robin.

"Maybe. When Robin was affected by the virus, I could have contacted any of you and had Kid Flash run him like the others. Instead, I called Batman, because I thought someone who wanted on your team should think of civilian lives fist. But if Batman hadn't had an anti-viral treatment already . . ."

"He did," Robin interjected, ignoring the way she flinched away from the sound of his voice. "You did the right thing. That's why we're on a team. We trust each other to be prepared. And that's why we do this job. We're supposed to think of civilians first."

"It's easy for you to trust Batman to have the solution ready every time?" Meredith asked, head still turned away from him.

Robin shrugged. "It used to be easier. Back when I actually believed it. He's only human, and even he doesn't always get everything right. But I trust him enough to put my life in his hands. I probably trust him more than he'd like me to. I trust him to think of my safety before he thinks of his own." He could tell she was thinking hard, and he wasn't sure how much more he should say. "He's . . . never let me down."

"If that was the right thing to do," this time she looked straight at Artemis, "then I need to apologize to you. I understand now. I have been trying to convince myself I'm thinking of him when I'm not. Or at least . . . not as much as I could be. I should be satisfied working away from him to eliminate any threats, not pushing to be directly where he is. I'm not fit for this team." She sat up a little taller, almost as though the understanding of this fact made her feel lighter. Robin frowned, his thoughts racing ahead to try to decipher what that might mean. She was saying something here that they were missing. She should have been disappointed, but instead she was relieved. Why?

Aqualad finally spoke up. "That has been said, but not decided yet. If anything, you showed us today that you could and do think of others before yourself. You told us that Robin was your priority, but you also proved it. Why should you not be right for this team?" Robin nodded slightly to himself, still thinking.

"Because me being on this team, or even on Batman's small team, is not necessary," Meredith said, turning to look at him. Robin noted that she was now looking people confidently right in the face again, just still not at him. "It puts me right in Robin's path when I don't need to be and am possibly a danger to him. It's safer and more considerate of him if I act from the sidelines, but just because I wanted a different life for myself I'm pushing myself into his life." She looked back at Artemis. "That's just selfishness. Which is what you've been trying to point out, that I keep saying I'm safe even when I'm not."

Superboy grunted. "No one but the League of Shadows ever said you're not safe." Robin nodded to himself again. Now Connor's concerns here were making sense to him. Of course, he knew what it was like to be someone's secret weapon. "You don't have to believe them, and neither do we."

"No, but I have to face facts," Meredith replied, shaking her head. She still looked so calm, so sure. It made no sense. If she were in fact being selfish before, she should be upset at being forced to admit that she couldn't have what she wanted. And she wasn't even being forced! Now they were arguing her case against her! Robin leaned forward, resting his elbows on the knees of his criss-crossed legs and his chin on folded hands. "I can't be sure. And if I can't be sure, I shouldn't ask any of you to be."

Robin's eyes widened behind his mask. Now it made sense.

"There's something you aren't telling," he said, sitting back up and resting his folded hands in his lap. "Some reason you can't be sure that you're safe, isn't there? You've absolutely refused to spar with me from the beginning, and you've never claimed that you were safe, just that you wouldn't hurt me. Tonight you almost did without thinking about it, so now you can't even say that anymore and you're saying you can't be sure. You're so calm about admitting it, too. You should be struggling to admit you might be dangerous, but that's not how it is, is it? You've actually struggled all this time to say that you aren't dangerous and are relieved to admit you might be. There's some reason that you think you're dangerous, but you've been telling yourself it wasn't a problem. Now you think it is a problem, so you're giving up! That's it, isn't it? No wait, don't answer that. Let me guess. It's something you can't control, isn't it? Like tonight, when you acted without thinking. It's the reason you won't fight with me, because you think that the moment you let yourself fight with me what almost happened tonight will happen. It's conditioning." Robin put his hands behind him and leaned back on them, watching Meredith for her reaction. He was poking through her secrets; he could feel it. He felt for the first time like he was really seeing her, not a copycat but her. And it was sad. "You think you're conditioned to kill me no matter what and that given the right circumstances you'll do it. All this time, you've been confident that you could keep those circumstances from happening. Now you aren't."

Meredith said nothing, but she finally looked at him. She was still calm, but he could see the stubbornness in her eyes. Finally, they'd found something she didn't want to admit. Alfred's words came to mind then, that she was more like Bruce than like him. Ah, so she didn't like to admit that she thought someone could have messed with her head, that the situation could be entirely out of her control. That _was_ like him. Points to Alfred.

"I'm right, aren't I." He didn't make it a question. He knew he was right. "And I think I know why you're worried. Something happened in the final test, didn't it?" He watched the fear return to her face, and he almost held out his hands for her again the fear was that fierce. Instead, he pressed forward. He was onto her now, and he had a feeling she needed someone to say what she couldn't. If for no other reason than to know that someone had finally understood the problem. "From what you just told us, the kids in that program weren't heartless killers. You weren't either. You even called it a 'team'. And you said none of you wanted to kill each other, but you still did. Even you. And I don't think you're heartless either. So why did a team of twenty highly trained killers who didn't want anything to do with risking each other's lives go through with the test? Did they have you at gunpoint?" He paused to watch her reaction, and the empty look in her eyes told him that wasn't right. "No. So there was something else. A conditioned response, and you acted even though you didn't want to."

This time Robin stayed silent and silently wished everyone else silent until she could respond. She stared straight back into his eyes, struggling to find her words, and for the first time he wondered what she saw when she looked at him. He'd never thought about it before but nineteen children who for the time she had known them had had these same blue eyes were now dead and buried, and if he believed her she'd buried them herself. Suddenly, he didn't think that it was really his eyes she was looking at right now.

"You're right," she finally said. "Something happened to us, but I don't know what. Actually, most of my team was resigned to the test, even if they didn't want to do it. But Lucas and I were close. He asked me to go in with him and not do as we were asked. We were going to defend ourselves only, no killing, until we were the last two standing. Then, because they wanted one assassin and a spare, we wouldn't have to fight each other or be responsible for killing anyone else." Her voice was hoarse. She swallowed and started speaking faster. "But it didn't happen. We all attacked each other anyway. I killed four before I ran into Lucas, and he attacked me. He was so small, and he was the best copy of you out of all of us which meant he just couldn't leverage the same killing power that someone like me could. I paralyzed him first, then I threw him over the railing of a six story interior balcony. As he fell," she stopped to press the knuckles of her thumbs into the sides of the bridge of her nose, obviously trying not to cry, "he had had the scariest expression before, but it just went shocked when he fell. I thought it then, but then later I knew something had to have been wrong. I could believe that with all my training I could have killed without thinking about it. On instinct. But Lucas –" she choked on the name and stopped.

"He wouldn't have," Robin finished for her.

"I'm sorry," Meredith said, finally crying around her thumbs.

Robin finally got up and went over to her, sitting close enough to grab her wrists. "You're right, it's obvious someone was controlling you somehow. But that means it's not your fault that happened. You don't have to apologize to us."

"I'm sorry," she said again, trembling in his hands.

"Meredith, listen to me. It wasn't your fault, and now that we know what we're up against we can help you," Robin cut off anything else he was about to say as she began to breathlessly apologize over and over and over again. Whoever she was apologizing to, Lucas or someone else, she wasn't apologizing to him. He started to talk over her, quietly. "I know you're sorry. I know it's probably not what you need to hear, but I know you're sorry. I get that now, ok? I hear y –" She suddenly pulled her hands down and twisted them around to grasp his forearms again, but this time something was different.

"I'm sorry," she said again, looking him dead on in the eye and holding onto him like nothing could make her let go. That was when he noticed. Her voice. For this entire conversation, she'd been speaking in her own voice. He'd never heard it before, and he had no idea how he hadn't noticed until now. It had been so definitely feminine. He was willing to bet she could sing. But now she was using his voice again, and it chilled him to the core.

Most people don't know what their own voices sound like. Unless they are performers or something similar, the only time they hear their own voices is when they record a voicemail message or watch a family video, but he knew his voice very well. It was on the TV or on recordings all the time, and there was one time he heard his voice that he would absolutely never forget.

When his family had been murdered and Bruce Wayne had taken him in, more specifically when the two of them had started trying to bring his family's murderers to justice, it had taken going through a good bit of evidence. Catching them was one thing; proving they were guilty was another. Some of that evidence had been security cameras or even police footage of the incident and the aftermath. He could never remember what he thought or felt in the many dark hours immediately after the incident, but he could make an educated guess. All recordings of him showed him doing nothing but apologize for hours straight. Probably to them. For not doing the smart thing, for sticking his nose in and getting them killed, for not saving them. Probably even for not dying with them. He didn't talk much afterward, but when he did all he could say was "I'm sorry" in his little nine-year-old voice.

The same voice Meredith was using now. Only she was apologizing to him, like she was him and he was . . .

"Why?" Robin finally asked, breathless. "Why are you apologizing to me?"

He remembered. He had asked Bruce that question too before he knew his secret identity. Everyone had said they were sorry to him, but when Bruce had said it he had said it differently, like it had meant something more to him than condolences. Like he felt responsible somehow

Meredith just stared at him. "You don't want to know," she said in his little nine-year-old voice.

Bruce had given him that answer too.

* * *

 **Author's Notes**

 **1\. Aw, man! No Alfred in this chapter!**

 **2\. Ugh, it's such a relief to have Dick getting back to his normal self.**

 **3\. I'm sorry it's been so long since I posted a new chapter! It's been more than three months, I think…way too long. Basically, I got a new job, started commuting many, many hours, started having to share a car which meant playing chauffeur sometimes. I didn't even start writing on this chapter until about a month ago, so I'm guessing that my schedule means chapters will take about that long to be written from now on. Barring other distractions, which I can tell you will be a problem with chapter seven. I have an idea for another one-shot for my "Spending Money" one-shot collection thing, so I'll write that before I move on to chapter seven. Look those one-shots up if you like my stuff and haven't already! This will only be the second one-shot in the collection so far, but it's a collection of short stories prompted by the question of what Dick/Robin might do with his allowance. The first one-shot was a funny, but, SPOILER, this new one will be sad. In any case, it might be a little longer than a month before I get chapter seven up, but I definitely haven't given up on or forgotten this story! It's just taking a while!**


End file.
